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BRIEF VIE^W" 



OF 



CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS, 



SHOWING 



THAT THE UNION CONSISTED 



OF 



INDEPENDENT STATES UNITED. 




1864, 



.4 



Oonstitiitioual Powers. 



In England, which is a constitutional government, one 
of the limitations of the central power, that of the monarch 
who commands the military forces, is the custom of making 
the Mutiny Act an annual one. Continuing in force hut 
one year, Parliament, which therefore cannot be prorogued 
beyond that period, or either House thereof, by refusing to 
re-enact it, can paralyze the military organization which 
pervades that mighty empire, and in one instant plunge 
it into anarchy. And were the occasion to arise, in which 
either element of that government were to clearly perceive 
its existence aimed at by the others, cam it be supposed that 
it would hesitate to use a power conservative of its being? 
If it believed the existing form of government an appro- 
priate one, would it have the right to refrain from so proper 
a use of its reserved power ? Would it not by refraining in 
fact lend its aid to destroy it ? The military power of the 
kingdom is therefore only delegated to the crown, and for a 
year at a time. In the event supposed, the soldiery would 
side with the orders of the State to which they might hap- 
pen to feel themselves allied, just as in this country, were 
the Federal Goverment to go out of existence, the different 
portions of the army would fall back to the States which 
furnished .them. It is the consciousness of this that restrains 
the desires and moderates the views of each Estate, or State, 
as AVebster defines it, in England ; and insures a compro- 



mise on every question concerning which opinions are 
found to be opposite and conflicting. It is because of this 
that England is truly the government of a limited mon- 
archy. 

What would seem at first sight more natural than that the 
bead of a government and commander of its armies, should 
have over them the absolute power of command ? That in 
military organization the principle of obedience to its head 
should be fundamental ? Where, however, this is so, there 
is always despotism ; while in England and the old United 
States, where, also, independent, but not necessarily conflict- 
ing, powers co-existed, freedom and liberty resulted. Of En- 
gland then it may be said, that certain powers are not delega- 
ted to the crown, but are reserved to the nobles or the people. 

Had the Puritans, or Impuritans, as they have been called, 
happily for us never left their native shores, and had they 
increased there as rapidly as they have here, it might have 
been they would have organized themselves into a society for 
the abolition of the hereditary order of the peerage ; the 
power that stands between the crown and the people, re- 
straining both; and. which, perhaps, less perfectly serves 
the purpose than, ultimately, it shall be found our sov- 
ereign States will with us. And it might have been we 
would never have heard of the attempted abolition of the 
hereditary order of negro slavery in America. If, by their 
sophistries, these social disturbers could have gained the 
people to return them in sufficient numbers to the House 
of Commons, to have a majority therein, and in turn 
have dcluded^^ the crown with an idea that the progress 
of humanity would be greater, were it to join them in 
assuming entire control of aftairs, that is in usurping* 
the whole Government, and that honest industry was 
an obsolete and exploded mode of acquiring wealth — 
it was a pitiful way at best, for one could only lay by some- 
thing for a rainy day; wlu'i-eas, by the printing press, Alad- 
din's wonderful Uiniji was thrown in Ihe shade in the mat- 



ter of princely fortunes, and palaces, and harems ; if this 
eould have been brought about, and a crusade for the aboli- 
tion of the hereditary order inaugurated, of course the peers, 
to save the constitution of government, as well as with a 
view to self-preservation, would have rejected the Mutiny 
Bill. With their Beechers and Sumners, and Wades and 
Sewards, and Lincoln and his Leaguers, how old England 
would have rung, and how all her decent people would 
have sickened, with their howling cry of military necessity 
and national life. How some sophistic Binney would have 
urged her judges to rule, that as subordination was of the 
very essence of military organization, the power to enforce 
it was therefore to be educed from its institution; that, in 
short, in the absence of law his desire was to be adopted as 
law. Or to speak more accurately, in the absence of a law 
passed by the Three Estates, but not in the absence of all 
law, for in such a case, each Estate would have the legal 
and moral right to use its own law, its entire, its absolute 
power. And such would be its duty, for only by the three 
orders, each maintaining itself, could the constitution of 
government be preserved. But would her judges have 
proved faithless, and have aided him to tumble an old es- 
tablished government in ruins, and erect a new one thereon. 
1^0 ! They would have remembered the just fate of many 
a victim of the block-and-axe ; and it may be that the pil- 
lory and the whipping-post would have tied the tongues 
and palsied the hands of the would-be demagogues and in- 
cendiaries, without v/hose wild ravings the usually calm 
and cautious judgment of a learned lawyer could hardly 
have been disturbed. The use of reserved power, while 
attended with disorder, would have saved England from a 
dreadful revolution and the loss of some of her elements of 
greatness. And it would be in such a case, if ever, that the 
doctrine of military necessity could be properly invoked ; 
for it would be solely with a view to support and continue 
the existence of the legal establishments of a kingdom ; in 



— 6— 

♦^boii., to use the simplest language, to preserve the consti- 
tution, and truly to save the national life. 

The use of its reserved power by an establishment of a 
nation would seem to be entirely conservative. The con- 
stant declaration of an intention, in certain contingencies, 
to use it, would be entirely proper, and solely for the pur- 
pose of conservation. Indeed, such constant declaration 
ought to convince a reasonable mind that such was the 
only object. As to the assumption of power which has not 
been delegated, no doubt ought to exist. It is usurped, 
not for the purpose of conservation, but for the purpose of 
destruction and revolution. The intention is, by destroy- 
ing other power, to attain undisputed domination. 

Power is a subtle matter — beneficent in the hands of those 
who with chastened desires possess the art of government, 
but dangerous and, it may be, fatal, when wielded by the 
presumptuous ignoramus, the pretentious quack, or the 
artful and unscrupulous adventurer. The deadhest poison 
is used by the skillful physician to preserve life and restore 
health ; by the charlatan in such manner as to sacrifice both ; 
or by the evil-minded with the intention to destroy. And 
80 with the knife. In the hand of the surgeon, the diseased 
part is removed and the blessing of health follows its use; 
or held by the innocent, it may deter or repel an assailant; 
while the hand of an assassin may direct it with fatal effect. 
Its use, or the intention of him who uses it, in no wise 
alters the nature of the knife or of the poison. JS'either is the 
nature of power in the least degree changed by the use 
thereof, nor by the intention of those who use it; although 
the effects of its use may differ as widely as salvation and 
destruction. 

Power is subtle because it is the domination of mind over 
matter. When the mind supposes itself to be fully instruct- 
ed, its belief is entire, and tlie action as well as direction of 
the will wonhl a])})ear to be a mere consequence, to be 
uliiiost in\oInntarv. The mind mav bocoinc fnrtlier in- 



structed, it may at last attain the fullness of knowledge of 
the subject, but its belief, however, is not less nor more 
entire ; it is still nothing but belief; but it is changed, like 
that of him informed he had been pursuing a wrong road, 
and the direction of the will is also necessarily changed. 
But he may have been pursuing the right road, and if he 
believe one who deceives him, he then travels with equal 
confidence away from the place he desires to reach. The 
collected mind of a people is controlled or impelled by the 
same causes which affect that of the individual. Power 
such as we speak of, that of the collected will, is where 
legal establishments or institutions exist; and where the 
principles thereof are firmly fixed in the minds of the 
people, who therefore yield obedience to the heads of the 
respective organizations, and maintain them. This is 
organized power, and its efhciency and permanence are in 
exact proportion to the correctness of the principles on 
which it is based. Among nations, and also in the institu- 
tions which compose them, as is the direction of their will, 
80 is the direction of their arms ; to hope otherwise would 
be as idle as to expect the grass to bend against the wind. 
Consequently in a constitutional government, the declara- 
tion of an intention to destroy an institution which the 
minds of the people, or of a sufficient portion of them, have 
maintained, and yet consent to maintain, is in reality a de- 
claration of civil war. Now a constitutional government en- 
dures just so long as the minds of the people who live under 
it, consent to uphold the independent organizations which 
compose it ; and without which there cannot be constitu- 
tional government. A constitution implies the existence of 
two or more social elements, and its preservation and con- 
tinuance depend upon their vitality ; the vitality depends 
upon the healthfulness of the organization ; and in the 
organization of each element there must necessarily be not 
only a right of resistance, but also a power of resistance. 
This moderates the aims of each, and good government 



— 8— 

instead of aiuircby or despotism is the result; for the same 
social force possesses a very different character when sub- 
ject to other forces, when of equal power with them, and 
when itself absolute. When the consent thereto ceases, a 
change immediately commences, and the fall or destruction 
ofthe establishment is consummated slowly or suddenly in 
proportion to the unity or intensity of the public will. Con- 
sent to an institution may cease,or apparently cease,but it may 
be revived and become as full or fuller than before, in which 
event, if the organization yet remain undestroyed, the estab- 
lishment would be revived, and become correspondingly 
strong. This occurred in England, where, after the Great 
Rebellion, the nobility, which as an order had not made 
itself obnoxious, and whose organization had not been de- 
stroyed, was fully restored ; while in France, where it was 
destroyed, it has been found impossible, although the con- 
sent revived, to re-establish it. In this country constitu- 
tional government existed because independent States exist- 
ed, and the principle thereof'was implanted in the minds of 
the people, who therefore upheld them ; and just in propor- 
tion as that principle of the mind became debased, the foun- 
dation ofthe independence ofthe States was sapped, and a 
new and unconstitutional principle, that of absolutism ot 
the Executive of the Federal Government, consequently 
assumed sway over them. 

By expressing in words on parchment their argreement to 
create a new organization, for certain specified purposes, 
to which limited powers were delesrated, the States by no 
means agreed to surrender their independent existence ; on 
the contrary, their Avords and terms are clear and express as 
to their own perpetuity, to say nothing as to the actual fact 
of their continued existence. And they provided, too, that 
at their will the^ can alter their agreement, that is, alter 
the government which they made. They certainly never 
agreed that their agreement could alter itself This, pre- 
posterous as it bounds, a\ ould hrtve been the case, if, as is 



held by some, the Executive cau, hy being himself the sole 
interpreter, disregard the limitation upon him, and wield 
such power as he claims to have the right to decide he pos- 
sesses. Of course he would decide that he held sufficient 
to enable him to effect any object that he conceived to be 
proper, which would be supreme and absolute power. If 
every one connected with the Federal Government were 
united with the Executive in such view, it would not alter 
the position, for every one of the States could hold an op- 
posite view; and in such a case it would scarcely be con- 
tended that the Federal Government could rightfully defy 
their will. If this be not so, what was meant by the pro- 
vision that in making alterations, the States should proceed 
according to certain forms ? Why provide for alterations 
at all, and by a cumbrous and tedious mode, if the Execu- 
tive himself can in an instant effect the change ; forifhe 
can do so, he can also disregard the alteration. If the 
minds of the people consent to this, if they consent that 
the States shall no longer remain independent, but be mere 
phantoms of departed powers, then the Federal Executive 
is absolute, and wields all power, and the constitution of 
government is gone, for there will I'emain only a people and 
their master, whose will is their only law. 

The constitution consists in the union and agreement of 
independent powers, and endures only so long as those in- 
dependent powers endure. By being reduced to writing, 
the declarations of the supreme law of the States, not of 
the Government of the United States, but a law governing 
that government, are not made more binding, but they are 
more readily understood, and become more widely and dis- 
tinctly known. The words used are not the constitution — 
they indicate the intentions of the States which form it, 
they express the terms of agreement that have been settled 
by the States, but they are no more the constitution than a 
certificate is a marriage, and there has been many a valid 
marriage without a word of writing, to which the unwrit- 

9 



—10— 

ten canstitution of the Three Estates of England may be 
compared ; and much writing, often, where there was no 
real marriage, as in the middle ages, when ceremonies were 
performed in the names of children who could not yet speak; 
and who, from early death, never attained the power im- 
plied in the terms of the pretended compact. This fallacy 
of taking the word for the thing, the shadow for the sub- 
stance, has deluded the people of many modern nations into 
the belief, that, b}^ engrossing on parchment pretentious 
words, and provisions and conditions, they were making 
constitutions. Being based upon nothing, that is, there 
being no pre-existing independent powers, first to agree 
upon, and afterward, for which continued existence is es- 
sential, to support and enforce, the conditions and provis- 
ions, these visionary productions of the dreamer last just 
80 long as their provisions and conditions are not required to 
restrain the use of power. The moment this occurs by any 
one invoking them to prote<jt himself against the executive, 
who, in a consolidated nation, necessarily directs all organ- 
ized power, they fail; the only one to enforce the conditions 
being the individual himself. These mock constitutions, 
therefore involve the impossible necessity that anyone who 
would rely upon one of their provisions, should organize a 
sufficient combination in his aid, for what individual is 
strong enough to war against a government. What plan 
and specification in writing of a dam across a river, would 
even stop for one instant the flow of the current ? In quiet 
times when it is scarcely more than a gentle rill, parch- 
ment would almost be sufficient, but when the waters rise, 
and the torrent roars, and the howling tempest distracts 
the mind, what foundation and what superstructure too 
strong ! Then indeed is wanted the dam itself, not the 
words which convoy the idea of a dam. Such imaginary 
conditions and provisions prove baseless and unsubstantial- 
not so, perhaps, those in the agreements of the States in the 
Federal Union, which still have the shades of those once 



—11— 

independent States, with, however, perfect organizations 
yet existing, and only awaiting returning consent, to uphold 
them. These States, by tlie minds of their people, even 
now not very unequally divided on the subject, becoming 
again instructed, may again be independent, and by the 
will of the people, resume the direction of their power. 
Then, and not till then, will power limit power, and the cit- 
izen be free. ' . 

As to the derivation of the power that a State possesses, 
we are to draw upon the whole fund of English constitu- 
tional and colonial history. A very few references, how- 
ever, need be made, for it is only necessary to show that 
the colonies were planted by subjects of the English Crown; 
that they were held by that crown as separate and distinct 
dependencies ; and that in their struggle for independence 
they were not merged into one organization. That this 
has not occurred at any time since then, maybe seen in the 
Declaration of Independence ; in the Articles of Confeder- 
ation and Perpetual Union, of 1781 ; in the articles of the 
Federal Union afterward agreed upon ; and in each consti- 
tution of the thirty- four existing States. 

Under authority from the crown, the colonies were plant- 
ed by Englishmen on territory obtained by discovery, pur- 
chase, or conquest. Grants and patents were issued by the 
crown to individuals or companies, who exercised the 
authority and rights thereby vested in them, in the estab- 
lishment of these new governments. When Henry VII. in 
in 1502, granted a licence to Elliott and his associates to 
discover unknown countries, and to plant them with Eng- 
lish, he empowered the grantees " to make laws for the 
new settlements." (Rymer's Fed. xiii. p. 37.) In the grant 
of November 1620, by James I., one object is stated to be 
"to extend the boundaries of his dominion." This would 
appear to be the prominent object of the whole system of 
colonization. 



—12— 

George Chalmers, a British loyalist, who returned to Eng- 
land, and there for many years held the office of Chief 
Clerk of the Privy Council, in his Political Annals, pub- 
lished in 1780, says on pp. 14, 15, "It is a circumstance in 
the history of the charters extremely remarkable that with 
a spirit somewhat unaccountalde they declare ' that the 
cmio-rants and their posterity shall still be considered as 
En2;lish subjects.' * * * We shall discover however 
that the most accurate of all the charters, that of Pennsyl- 
vania, contained no such declaration; an omission which 
arose probably from design rather than accident. That 
illustrious statesman and lawyer, the Lord-Keeper Guild- 
ford, perused it with attention, and adjusted its various 
clauses. When William was about to renew the charter of 
Massachusetts, soon after the Revolution, he was advised, 
by the ablest lawyers in England, that such a declaration 
was nugatory; because the law necessarily inferred, that 
the colonists were Englishmen, entitled to the rights and 
burdened with the duties of Englishmen. If the clause 
before mentioned was futile, the reservation of a right of 
legislation with regard to the Colonies in the Supreme 
Magistrate was undoubtedly illegal. For whatever was the 
opinion or practice of James I. and his immediate successor, 
a King of England at no period of its annals could legislate 
for his people without the consent of the State." His access 
to the English State Papers gives great value to the author- 
ity of this writer. On page 17, he says : " It seems certain, 
that though such exertions of prerogative were very com- 
mon in that age, a King of England could no more exercise 
a legislative authority over English subjects because they 
had removed to a distant territory of the State, than over 
Englishmen within the realm." 

"Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut were 
chartered colonies, enjoying systems altogether democrati- 
cal, without yielding to England the unsubstantial appear- 
ance of sovereignty. Now Jersey, E'ennsylvania, Maryland 



—13— 

ami Carolina •\veve proprietary plantations, in wliich tlie 
lords of the soil havinf^ derived from the same source the 
equal rights y counts-palatine enjoyed, stood in the place 
of the king ; who possessed within their limits neither the 
means of effectually executing what the supreme legislature 
had enacted, nor the undefined authority which superintend- 
ence may claim. In the royal governments of Virginia, 
^N'ew York and l^ew Hampshire, the Governor, the Council, 
the Delegates, formed a miniature of the King, the Lords, 
and the Commons." 

While the grant of power to a colony, by the crown, was 
liberal, the colony was still more liberal in its exercise of 
it, and in an assumption of it even beyond the grant or 
charter. It was by no means intended to grant sovereign 
power, yet the acts of some, perhaps of all, of the colonial 
governments, encroached thereon. In 1692 the Assembly 
of New York passed a " Bill of Rights." Most of the others 
did the same, but they were " rejected by the king because 
it was thought incongruous for the legislative power of a 
province to declare on what terms it would be connected 
with the nation-" Major John Child, 1649, published a 
pamphlet " ISTow England's Jonas cast up in London" 
Speaking of Wiuslow, the New England agent, he says, 
"Andb}^ the way, mark, reader, his great boasting, that they 
are growing into a nation, high conceit of a nation, broad 
high thoughts of themselves, which make them usually term 
themselves a State ; call the people their subjects.'' During 
the years 1627, 8 and 9, the Governor of Virginia, in giving 
certain authority to William Cleybourne, styled him the 
" the Secretary of State of this kingdom, as that most an- 
cient dominion was then called." (Chalmers', 227.) The 
governments of Massachusetts, Maryland and Virginia 
erected mints and coined money, ever held, in England, to 
be an exclusive prerogative of sovereignty. In May 1666 
theAssembly of Maryland passed an act for the naturaliza- 
tion of aliens. " An Act of naturalization of one colony 



cannot assuredly operate in any other, because all are inde- 
pendent and co-ordinate." (Ibid, 316). The disputes of 
all the colonial governments with that of England, and with 
the crown, as to their right to lay taxes on them, also a pre- 
rogative of sovereignty, were incesseot : Spotswood wrote 
to the Board of Trade, in June, 1718, " The people were 
made to believe that the Parliament could not lay any tax 
(for 80 they called the rates of postage) on them without 
the consent of the General Assembly." 

By the charter of June 1665, Carolina was declared in- 
dependent of any other province, but subject immediately 
to the Crown of England. Governor Pownal in his " Ad- 
ministration of the Colonies," 1765, p. 37, says, " JSTor is it 
more necessary to preserve the several [colonial] govern- 
ments subordinate within their respective orbs, than it is 
essential to the preservation of the empire to keep them 
disconnected and independent of each other; they certainly 
are so at present." Dr. Franklin seems to have a clear 
view of the subject. He says "It is an old observation of 
politicians and frequently made by historians, that small 
states always best preserve their manners. Whether this 
happens from the greater room there is for attention in the 
legislature, or from the less room there is for ambition and 
avarice, it is a strong argument among others, against an 
incorporating union of the colonies in America, or even a 
federal one that may tend to the future reducing them un- 
der one government." (Sparks' Franklin ii. 329). 

The Congress of the Colonies, which John Adams says 
"was only a diplomatic assembly" (Adams' Defence, iii. 
805) declared that they "are, and of right ought to be, free 
and independent states," not one consolidated state as was 
desired by IsTew Hampshire, which unanimously instructed 
her delegates " to join with the other colonies in declaring 
the thirteen colonies a free and independent state, provided 
the regulation of their internal police be reserved to their 
own provincial assembly." On the 10th of October, 1780, 



—15— 

the Continental Congress resolved that the unappropriated 
lands that may be ceded or relinquished to the United 
States by any particular state, "be settled and formed into 
distinct republican states, which shall become members of 
the federal union, and have the same risjhts of sovereignty, 
freedom and independence as the other states." 

It would appear then that the only grants of power ta 
either of these colonies,were made by the Crown of England. 
That the inhabitants thereof, if not aliens, were, and were 
possessed of the legal rights of, English subjects. That 
there was an entire assumption and exercise of sovereignty 
by each state in the joint declaration of independence. And 
that there was a full recognition, for no one questions that, 
of that sovereignty in the Articles of Confederation and 
Perpetual Union, of 1781. The derivation of sovereignty 
from the Crown of England is therefore clear, except as to 
one point, which is, that that crown denied such sovereignty 
until in 1783, by the Treaty of Paris, the King of England 
recognized the independence of the thirteen States, each by 
its name. By this act George III. fulfilled the prophecy, 
which Shakspeare, in the last scene of King Henry VIII. 
imputes to Cranmer respecting King James — that 

Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine 
His honour, and the greatness of his name, 
Shall be, and make new nations. 

Sovereign power passed from the Crown of England to 
each State. A State holds and possesses its territory, but 
the territory is not the State. The second part of the con- 
stitution of Massachusetts says a State is, a body politic 
formed by a voluntary association of individuals: Article 
IV". of the Bill of Rights of the same State is as follows : 
" The people of this Commonwealth have the sole and ex- 
clusive right of governing themselves, as a free sovereign and 
independent State ; and do, and forever hereafter shall, exer- 
cise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right, which 
is not, or may not, hereafter, be by them expressii/ delegated 
to the United States of America, in Congress assembled.''' 



—16— 

When the "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual 
Uuibn/' of 1781, proved inadequate, a convention of the 
States was called " to amend them," and met in May 1787. 
It was attempted to do much more than amend them. The 
convention framed a new plan of government containing so 
little of the federal principle that it met with an opposition, 
that at la.st essentially modified it. Yet the plan proposed 
was claimed by all its advocates to be truly federal, and as 
such they urged it with arguments of transcendent ability 
upon the States for their adoption. That there were en- 
tertained opposing views, almost impossible of adjustment, 
and that differences existed, radical in their nature, which 
were to be compromised, is proved by the well-weighed 
words of Washington, who, on the 31st of March 1787, 
wrote, "I amfuUy of opinion that those who lean to a mon- 
archical government, have either not consulted the public 
mind, or that they live in a region which is much more pro- 
ductive of monarchical ideas, than is the case in the south- 
ern States." (Sparks' Wash, ix, 247.) April 25th, 1788, 
he wrote, " That the proposed constitution Avill admit of 
amendments is acknowledged by its warmest advocates. 
* * * Upon the whole, I doubt whether the opposition 
to the constitution will not ultimately be productive of more 
good than evil." (Ibid, ix, 351-2.) To speak with entire 
accuracy, it may be said that with all the efforts made, the 
States could not be brought to accede to the proposed plan. 
Literally speaking, they did, but practically they did not, for 
when at length a sufficient number of them had done so, it 
was with recommendations of amendments by seven of 
them. The States at once removed the objectionable fea- 
tures of the plan, by ordaining the famous articles known 
as the "ten amendments," so that it was in truth the 
amended plan of government which became effective ; for 
the congress of the new government commenced its existence 
on the 4th of March 1780, and on the same day passed the 
amendments. At this time all the States had ratified ex- 



-17— 

cept Rhode Island and North Carolina. It was not until 
April 30th, nearly two months subsequently, that Wash- 
ington was inaugurated President. New Jersey, on the 
20th of November, 1789, was the first, and Virginia on the 
15th of December 1791, was the last State, to ratify the 
amendments. These ten amendments were enacted simul- 
taneously with the establishment of the new government, 
and prevented, and will ever continue to prevent, it from 
becoming one consolidated empire, which in time would 
otherwise undoubtedly have been its fate. It is important 
to bear in mind that the well known volume, called " The 
Federalist," contains the arguments in favorofthe proposed 
plan, while the arguments and articles against it, and which 
secured the amended plan, are not known. This ignorance 
has no doubt much obscured the mind of the country as to 
its constitutional history. Not foreseeing the violation of 
the fundamental rights of the people, and to account for 
the absence in the proposed plan of government, of a Re- 
cognition of Rights, Washington, on the 28th of April 1788, 
wrote to the Marquis de La Fayette, " for example, there 
was not a member of the convention, I believe, who had 
the least objection to what is contended for by the advocates 
for a Bill of Rights, and Trial by Jury. The first, a Bill 
of Rights, where the people evidently retained everything, 
which they did not in express terms give up, was considered 
nugatory." (Ibid, ix, 357.) The words, "give up," cor- 
rectly express the fact as it existed at the time the letter 
was written, for Article 1, Section 1, of the constitution, by 
the use of the word "granted," conveyed power absolutely, 
as a gift ; but subsequently, by the action of the States and 
the Federal Government, this absolute gift was entirely re- 
claimed; for by the amendments, the powers of the Federal 
Government are not granted or given, but are merely " del- 
egated." By the use of the word delegated, in Article X, of 
the amendments, each State retains the right of judgment as 
to the use of the power it had delegated. No mis-appre- 
3 



—18— 

hensiou as to this is possible, for, aside from the well, 
known meaniug of the word, John Adams had just quo- 
ted from Milton's " Ready and Easy way to Establish a Free 
Cornmouvvealth," "lu this grand council must the sove- 
reignty, not transferred, but ddegated only, aud, as it were 
deposited, reside." (Adams' Defence, 2d ed. 1794, i, 366.) To 
illustrate how clear it is that each State is the judge of the 
use of the power it has delegated, suppose ]S"ew York were 
by all the other States reduced to one senator, in violation of 
the provision for the ecpial senatorial representation. Would 
not Xew York be the judge of that invasion of her right? 
AYould the very States which invaded it be the judges 
thereof, aud she, the State aggrieved, be the only one with 
no right of judgment, aud wi^h no right to use her power 
to redress the wrong ? 

Some observations on the nature of the Government that 
was created, and a review of certain opinions entertained of 
it, may not be inappropriate before a farther consideration 
of the question, whether it was a mixed one, of divided 
powers, that is, limited; or whether it was, what it it is now 
held by some to be, a government of unlimited powers, an 
absolute despotism. John Adams was so opposed to the prin- 
ciple of arbitary power that he wrote, " It may sound oddly 
to say that the majority is a faction; but it is, nevertheless, 
literally just. If the majority are partial in their own favor, if 
they refuse or deny a perfect equality to every member of the 
mmority, they are a faction." (Ibid, iii, 287.) His work was 
entitled, "a Defence of the Constitutions of Governments of 
the L luted States of America against the attack of M. Turc^ot 
1.1 his letter to Dr. Price." Mr.Turgothad complained that in 
America, " instead of collecting all authority into one cen- 
tre, that ot the nation, they have established different bodies, 
a body of Representatives, a Council, and a Governor." It 
was Mr. Adams' successful effort to answer the complaint, 
lie claims t(, prove that - without three orders, and an ef- 



—19— 

fectual balance between tbem, in every American constitu- 
tion, it must be destined to frequent unavoidable revolutions." 
(i, ix.) " There would be an end of everything were the 
same man, or the same body to exercise the three powers, 
that of enacting laws, that of executing public resolutions, 
and that of judging the crimes or differences of individ- 
uals." (i, 154.) " Now it is impossible to balance two as- 
semblies ; without introducing a third power, one or the 
other will be most powerful, and whichever it is, it will con- 
tinually scramble till it gets the whole." (i, 212.) As the gov- 
ernor and members of both houses of the legislature, and 
the judges, too, are now chosen by the same electors, it is a 
consequence, that a political party, which may secure them 
all, has them for its representatives, and occupies precisely 
the position of the successful one of the two assembliea 
which Mr. Adams supposes. His balance therefore proves 
defective, as must ever be the result where the fallacious 
system of a simple arithmetic plan of representation is at- 
tempted ; and the country is now in the condition into 
which he foresaw it would be plunged without a balanced 
government. 

" Three branches of power have an unalterable foundation 
in nature; they exist in every society, natural and artificial ; 
and if all of them are not acknowledged in any constitution 
of government, it will be found to be imperfect, unstable 
and soon enslaved." (i, 362.) With the observation that 
" the congress of the confederation was not a legislative 
nor representative assembly, but only a diplomatic assem- 
bly," (i, 363,) he goes on to say that "Dr. Price and the 
Abbe de Mably are zealous for additional powers to Con- 
gress. Full power in all foreign affairs, and over foreign 
commerce, and perhaps some authority over the commerce 
of the States with one another, may be necessary; and it is 
hard to say, that more authority in other things is not want- 
ed; yet the subject is of such extreme delicacy and difficulty, 
that the people are much to be applauded for their caution,'' 



—20— 

The object of hia labor is, "to collect together the ancient 
and modern leagues, the Amphyctionic, the Olynthian, the 
Argive, the Arcadian, and the Achoean confederacies among 
the Greeks — the General Diet of the Swiss Cantons, and the 
States-General of the United I^Tetherlands, the Union of the 
Hanse-Towns, which have been found to answer the pur- 
pose both of government and liberty, and consider what 
further federal powers are wanted." (Ibid, i, 364.) 

Mr. Adams, whose work was first issued in 1787, prior 
to the meeting of the Federal Convention, and with the pur- 
pose to instruct the menil)ers thereof, was entirely correct 
in hia judgment that without a balance in the government 
of a state, its history must necessarily present a continued 
scene of anarchy and end in slavery. But a fallacy lay in 
his supposition that three paper orders, here an ideal scheme, 
a form merely, borrowed from the reality in England, would 
prove a balance. They cannot, for they repose on nothing. 
With a view to such an end, and to protect minorities, for 
majorities, to some extent, can protect themselves, it was pro- 
posed in Massachusetts, by her convention of 1853, to wisely 
provide for an unequal apportionment of representatives, 
which in some degree results in a temporary balance of power. 
"The population of Fall river is 11.700,and is entitled to three 
representatives. There are twenty-three towns in other 
parts of the state, with a population of 11,308, which are 
entitled to twenty-three representatives, etc., etc." (Discus- 
sions on the proposed Constitution, 214). In the state of 
Delaware, each county, whatever its population, has an 
equal representation, both in the senate and in the house ; 
and it will be found, that this is a near approach to a true 
constitution, going far to preserve her good government. 
The colonists who came to this country were generally 
of the democratical class. They came with the ideas, the 
mind, of England, fully recognizing, as it did, the three 
established orders in that kingdom ; but they did not bring 
Ihe three orders with them. Thoy earno as a doraocracj-, 



—21— 

or commons, yet with miuds so discipliued that until re- 
cently they have considered that a positive limitation of 
their power did in reality exist. To speak only of the 
Northern States in this connection, party division and doc- 
trine aided to support this opinion, which, however, gradu- 
ally yielded to the subtle teachings of the New Englander, 
who, unable to gain a livelihood from the sterile soil of his 
nativity, sought it where nature was more bountiful, and 
among a people who were happily content with their lot. 
Such a people could only he deluded into a consent to aban- 
don their fair inheritance and their worship of the true God, 
by the promise of this tempter, that he would give them all 
the States of the Union and the glory of them, if they would 
fall down and worship him. While the mind in the North- 
ern States had gradually reached this condition, from which, 
however, perhaps as to the greater part, it has, through the 
purifying teachings of the past four years, now recovered, 
that of the Southern States has, also gradually, reached one 
exactly the opposite. There, along with the first plantmg 
of those colonies, was founded an establishment much re- 
sembling that of caste of the empires of antiquity, or serf- 
dom of the middle ages. This institution has so entwined 
itself in the social and political relations of those States, 
that, with accelerating intensity, its necessary consequencea 
have dominated the minds of the people more completely 
than serfdom ever did in England; for even in the time of 
Edward I., the serfs were less numerous than these slaves 
now are, and they were not fixed in their position by the 
law of race and color. The mode of government, too, of 
the serf, was not so exactly adapted to his nature and his 
wants, as that under which the negro lives so happily and 
becomes so elevated, that he furnishes the novelist with that 
modern marvel, an "Uncle Tom." 

Apart from this radical division of the whole American 
mind, it is important to consider the long existing and 
marked difference of character between the two sections of 



—22— 

the peopleof the ^N'ortliern" States. It would be most un- 
just, however, not to recognize that there are very many 
honourable exceptions to this arbitrary classification. The 
difference is seen in the many years of disregard by New 
England, of the rights of other States to the return of fugi- 
tives from service. In this they regard their greed, but 
not their right, for it is impossible that any one can regard 
his own, who disregards anothers rights. He strikes at the 
principle by which they are held ; he forfeits them, so to 
speak. The existence of rights repose only and surely upon 
arms ; and tlie absence of the military spirit in is'ew Eng- 
land, while it is so prevalent elsewhere in the North, proves 
an essential ditlerence of character, if not of principle, and 
bodes ill for their retention of the rights they so recklessly 
peril. The preservation of personal rights has always been 
held, except by many among the people referred to, to be 
of such vital importance that they are recognized in the ar- 
ticles of the constitution, as above and beyond, and not de- 
pendent thereon. These rights were obtained only by 
success in arms, and they could not have been preserved 
exce})t by the establishment of a government of a nature 
entirely limited as to its power to infringe upon them. It 
is in the possession of these rights that the citizen of an 
American State differs from the subject of any other gov- 
ernment, for as the subject race in a nation is the democracy, 
the Americans, by the prosperous issue of their war against 
the Crown of England, lost somewhat of the character of 
that class, and, in a proportional degree, assumed that of an 
aristocracy. It may therefore be said, that so far as the spirit 
prevails to maintain by arms, if necessary, their independ- 
ent rights as self-governing freemen, they are more exactly 
a democracy of aristocrats. New England, however, par- 
took of this changed character in a lesser degree than the 
other Northern Stares. The British forces, which scarcely 
made an attempt to penetrate the interior, left Boston in 
March, 1776, and afterward, dnring the long years of war, 



—23— 

there was scarcely a hostile foot iipou her soil. Her people 
in general had not the spirit of a warlike race. "Her 
soldiery, at the time I am speaking of, was contemptible in 
the extreme." "It was no unusual thing ia the army be- 
fore Boston, for a Colonel to make drummers and fifers of 
his sous, thereby, not only being enabled to form a very 
snug, economical mess, but to aid also very considerably 
the revenue of the family chest." (Graycjon's Memoirs, 
2d edition, 158, 148.) Washington wrote to Richard Henry 
Lee, from Cambridge, August 29th, 1775, "But it is 
among the most difficult tasks I ever undertook in my life, 
to induce these people to believe that there is or can be 
danger, till the bayonet is pushed at their breasts, not that 
it proceeds from any uncommon prowess, but rather from 
an unaccountable kind of stupidity. * * * * j have 
made a pretty good slam among such kind of officers as the 
Massachusetts Government abounds in, since I came to 
their camp, having broken one colonel and two captains for 
cowardly behaviour in the action on Bunker's Hill, two 
captains for drawing more provisions and pay than they 
had men in their company, and one for being absent from 
his post when the enemy appeared there, and burnt a house 
just by it. Besides these, I have at this time one colonel, one 
major, one captain and two subalterns under arrest for trial. 
In short, I spare none, and yet fear it will not all do, as 
these people seem to be too inattentive to every thing but 
their interest." (Pollard's War, Second Year, 84, 85.) On 
the 10th of February, 1776, he wrote, " Notwithstanding 
all the public virtue which is ascribed to these people, there 
is no nation under the sun that pays more adoration to 
money than they do." Although this was the impression 
that the Massachusetts character produced upon others, it 
was quite the reverse of their own opinion of themselves ; 
for at a very early period they entered upon the dangerous 
career of self-deception. The Washington Federalist of 
February 12, 1801, says, "W^ith theniilitia of Massachu- 



—24— 

Betts, consisting of 70,000, (regulars let us call tbeni) in 
arms ; with those of New Hampshire, united almost to a 
man ; with half the number of the citizens of the other 
States, ranged under the federal banner in support of the 
constitution" — This was in the time of the alien and sedition 
laws — " what could Pennsylvauia do, aided by Virginia? 
the militia untrained and farcically performing the manual 
exercise with cornstalks instead of muskets, burdened besides 
with a formidable internal foe. * * * * What, may 
it be asked, would be the issue of the struggle ?" (Sectional 
Controversy, bQ.) A tolerably correct idea of the great 
difference between the two sections of the country may 
be formed by considering an imaginary case. Suppose a 
division were agreed upon, and that both armies, composed 
as they now are, were to take possession of the respective 
countries, reserving to themselves and their descendants 
the privilege of the suffrage. In such a case,in the South- 
ern States, the government would be in the hands of those 
who own the country, comparatively few being excluded. 
It would be a despotism, but being, in a manner, self- 
imposed, its operation would be almost mild and gentle. 
It could not press heavily upon the hardy frames of a peo- 
ple not far advanced, as some have claimed, in civilization; 
their spirit of independence would not be broken by a rule 
which was their own rule. But in the Xortheru States, 
as those who own the country, would be almost unanimously 
excluded, the despotism of such a supposed government, 
would be harsh and revolting beyond any conception that 
could now be formed of it. The law, in each case, might 
be in the very same words, yet it is impossible to imagiue 
two governments which would be in reality more radically 
different in nature and in character, and it may be added, 
in destiny. 

Without considering how far so thoroughly fixed an in- 
stitution as slavery might prove a balance of government, 
perhaps it may be correct to say that prior to the Revolu- 
tion, the crown was, and since then, the Federal Union 



-zif- 



among the States b;i8 been, the actual balance of govern- 
ment for each State, preventing " frequent unavoidable 
revolutions." This is so well understood, that it may be 
contidentialiy asserted, that the principle of federation, 
which is a desire for, and consent of, union, is adhered to by 
every one, without a single exception, who adheres to the 
principle of the independence of each State. They may 
dift'er as to the arrangement of the details, as they have a 
right to do, but they do not differ as to the principle, of 
union. Those who do not uphold the principle ofthe indepen- 
dence of each State, can by no possibility desire a union 
or federation of the States. Many are indifferent, or ignor- 
ant, or visionary, or weak worshipers of the unscrupulous 
usurpers of power; their adoration ever rising in the exact 
inversed degree, to which the tyrant in his acts of monstrous 
brutality, may sink. But the active among them are the 
monarchists of whom Washington spoke. They prate of a 
monarch}', a limited monarchy, as they vainly imagine, and 
to a very much greater extent than is generally suspected. 
If it were possible for a monarchy to estabhsh itself in this 
country, what powers are to limit it ? Such a government 
could not be other than an absolute despotism, such, in 
fact, as now is almost established, and which will continue 
until the independence of the States be restjred. The only 
limited governments are federative in their nature. In his 
barony, the baron is an absolute despot, and he can be nothing 
else; but when confederated with others, the monarchy 
they create, while itself limited by them, limits their power. 
And so with democratic states. They exhibit little evi- 
dence of disorder, or at least, but little attention is attracted 
to it, when feeble and in poverty; in which condition it is 
that thev become confederated. The government they cre- 
ate is limited by their power, and it, by limiting them, 
saves them from anarchy. Unfortunately it is ever the ten- 
dency of these created governments, successful in baronial, 
4 



—26— 

but not always in democratic, federations, whicli are apt to- 
Boparate, to swallow up or destroy thiir creators. The 
minds ot the people are led to this by their love of lib- 
erty degenemling into license. Transported with joy at 
the freedom aUained by federation, they strive to obtain 
more, and end by losing oW. The desire of the misguided 
monarchists and revolutionists in this country, is not for a 
union of the States, but it is to destroy the States, and to 
erect one single government over the territory which be- 
longs to them. As there would be no balance in such a 
government, were it possible to erect it, anarchy and event- 
ual slavery would be inevitable. The design to erect it, 
will prove less practicable than the long continued and 
always baffled attempts to establish an inappropriate form 
of government in Mexico, where the aspiring party,whatever 
it was, had at least this merit, that it existed throughout the 
nation. But in this country,a century of warfare, if the supply 
of unfortunate conscripts, deluded negroes, entrapped for- 
eigners and veteran bounty-jumpers, were to continue that 
long, would not suffice to make the traders and sophists of 
"New England the dominant military power, with their head 
assuming the form, and soon the name, of Emperor. The 
veiled and delusive scheme,n])held as such schemes usually 
are, by many men of the purest intentions, would fail ; and 
their mistaken efforts, instead of resulting in "one nation'' 
and '* one government," would render it impossible "to 
secure ourselves from the fate of the divided republics of 
Italy and South America." 

A thorough knowledge of the career of national life from 
its birth through its various transitions to old age, decrepi- 
tude and death, irresistably leads the well-balanced mind 
to the conviction that the form of government, if it con- 
tijiue to be appropriate, should, and necessarily must, vary 
with, and be adapted to, the maturing national character. 
M. Comte, the most zealous of anti-feudalists, renders the 
thanks of posterity to the feudal system for the good it ha» 



—27— 

done in forming raoderti civilization at a time when it was 
a necessity. In treating of our long established political in- 
stitutions, the fact is not to be disregarded, that the 
mind of this country has already undergone all the earlier 
transitions through the feudal system, not in this country, 
but at their old homes in Europe, from which, as emigrants, 
they bi-ought the exact degree of civilization which had 
been attained at the moment of their departure. American 
civilization, therefore, while in its origin European, is, at the 
same time, that of. a more advanced era of national lite. 
Now as a people cannot recede to a system that is past, and 
past forever, so far as they r.re concerned, the hopes of some, 
and fears of others, of the establishment of an aristocracy 
here, other than in the degree already referred to, are the 
idlest which can be indulged. They are simply preposter- 
ous. An Aristocracy, the rule of the bravest, according to 
the true meaning of the Avord, is a race of warriors; and 
where all are warriors, they only are called the best. There 
is usually a serf or subject race under them. It is character- 
istic of them that they will do little else but fight and 
govern. Their advent is with the birth of a nation, and de- 
pendent on bravery alone, they are, except where honour is 
concerned, the reverse of exclusive in their intercourse. If 
of their own race, the individual of merit, may, by proper 
means, easily reach exalted rank ; but they never permit, if 
they can prevent it, the inferior race to be elevated to their 
own position. As they are the soldiers of the nation, no 
standing army can be required; and by preserving the in- 
dependence of the country, they likewise maintain their own 
liberties. The existing era of our national life, or rather, of 
that of a part of the country, is that in which an element of 
an exactly opposite nature aspires to domination. It is an 
element beniticent and liberal, if properly controlled, but 
it is most apt to run wild. This is now the period when city 
wealth, money got in trade, and manufactures, and com- 
merce, the Plutocratic element, manifests its peculiar spirit. 



—28— 

It was this clas3,no member of which could enter the superior 
or governing order, owing to the injustice and mistaken pol- 
icy and changed character of its worn-out aristocracy, that, 
produced the revolution in France. Yet it did not profit 
thereby; for, as De Tocf|ueville says, "its personal sulier- 
ings were great^er, and its substantial losses relatively al- 
most as great as that of the nobles. Its trade was partially 
its manufactures were totally destroyed." (Memoirs and 
Remains, i, 286.) This class will do almost everything 
else but fight ; they desire an absolute government, but 
they aspire to be the dominant class. Lackmg ever charac- 
teristicof an aristocratic order, in their pretension thereto, 
they resemble the well-dressed impostor who attempts to 
pass a .worthless check. They appear in the old age of 
national life, and wealth being their only measure of dis- 
tinction, exclusiveness in their most marked characteristic. 
The soldiers they hire to defend the state always deprive 
the people of their liberty, that of the class which employs 
them, faring no better in this respect, than that of the agri- 
cultural class. And this cannot be otherwise; for the 
very fact of the existence of such an army, proves 
the exhaustion of those social forces which had origin- 
ally created, and may have long successfully conducted, 
the now tottering frame of effete government. When 
entirely devitalized, it necessarily falls into the hands ot 
the army, which has the advantage of being a new and vi- 
tal, and therefore dominant, organization ; and its head, the 
successful general, if that be his and its fortune, must be- 
come the master of the country. But this can only occur 
when the army is composed of the people of the country, 
not of foreigners. In the fall of the Roman Empire, one of 
the boasts of wliich had been, that noi^e but a Roman citi- 
zen could be a Roman soldier, "under the humane pretext 
of gratifying the world with a flattering title, an Antoninus, 
in one of his edicts, called by the name of Roman citizens 
the tributaries of the Roman empire. * * * * Thus 



—29— 

perished that ancient safety-cry which made the execution- 
ers fall back: I am a Roman citizen.'' Absolutism had 
now fastened itself on the empire, and " Rome was menaced 
by the Goths. The people, weary of the imperial yoke, 
did not defend themselves. The men of the country, still 
imbued with the old Roman manners and religion, those 
men, the only ones whoso arms were still robust and souls 
capable of pride, rejoiced to see among them free men and 
gods resembling the ancient gods of Italy. Stilico, the 
general to whom the empire entrusted its defence, appeared 
at the foot of the Alps ; he called to arms, and no one arose* 
he promised liberty to the slave, he lavished the treasures 
of the fisc. * * It was in vain. * * The Roman name 
was abolished in the west." After this Rome produced 
no great soldier, or if it did, he, like " Belisarius in tears, 
left the country Avhich repudiated the name of Roman with 
as much eagerness as it formerly showed in claiming it, 
when that name was synonymous with independence.'' 
(Thierry's Hist. Essays, XIII.) In the fall of the old French 
monarchy, Anacharsis Cloots, with the tag, rag and bob- 
tail of Paris, a crowd of all nationalities, at his heels, call- 
ing it the embassay of the human race, invaded the I^Ta- 
tional Assembly, and demanded and obtained from it, the 
restoration of the rights of man to the people of the whole 
world. Fortunately for France her own people yet fill her 
armies, which are therefore truly national, and the despot- 
ism of which is consequently not altogether intolerable. 
Kot to be outdone by these masters in the school of discord, 
an American President, representing, however, only that 
portion of the people which has no faith in, and is unfit for, 
free institutions, and relying upon a foreign element adverse 
to them, in an edict, changes, or attemps to change, the na- 
ture of the negro, by calling him a soldier, and "an Amer- 
ican citizen of African descent." 

As personal property passes rapidly from hand to hand, 
the simple possession of it is usually held to be conclusive 



— so— 

as to title. Trained iu impatience for speedy and vast re- 
sults, to whose success secrecy is essential, this element of 
city money wealth comprehends but one mode ot transact- 
incr cpovernmental business, — a head to direct, and multitu- 
dinous clerks to be directed ; and it therefore always de- 
mands a highly centralized government, a secret, silent one, 
like that of Venice, which was composed of merchants as 
rulers, aided by almost an army of spies and informers. 
The people of the class spoken of, bred in ease and luxury, 
or desiring them as the greatest earthly good, will not 
themselves enter the army. Forgetful that a failure to pay 
may involve an attempt to seize the country, they resort 
to foreigners, and to a system of alluring bounties ; and 
while they require their soldiers to be the mere slaves of 
their wills, they at the same time, but most unreasonably, 
require that they should be as brave as their enemies. Ac- 
customed to affixirs being conducted by correspondence, to 
balance sheets exhibiting their atiairs,"and to the results, 
the property gained, which they do not care personally to 
see, being held by them in the shape of paper, an ideal re- 
presentation, they are, when enlisted in an adventure of 
which they have had no experience, but Avhich they be- 
lieve promises well, the most easil}^ deceived people in the 
world. Their minds are br -i to a reliance upon represen- 
tations made to them. If they have faith in it, the paid 
newspaper correspondent's statement that the greatest vic- 
tory in the history of war has been achieved, satisfies them 
as fully as the certificate of stock in a bank soon to break, 
or the well executed plan of a town not yet laid out. Be- 
lieving what is told them, and what they tell each other, 
they are as children blowing bubbles. And in this respect, 
the old age of nationallife seems like second childhood, only 
that^n the primitive times of national youth, those who 
instruct are of a superior class, and are dependent too on a 
class still superior to themselves ; and, as a consequence, 
they are intorestod not to deceive overmuch. In the later 



—31— 

stage spoken of, those who assume the office of instructor 
of the public mind, while they are often mere adventurers 
and self-seekers, are at the same time without fixed views 
of life, aiid without a superior class to control them. Their 
struggle is to live from hand to mouth. They blush not at 
their practices of deception, the consequences of which do 
not follow them into the new and shifting scenes on which 
they are ever vanishing and re-appearing. 

No well grounded objection could be urged against the 
system of government referred to, were it appropriate. But 
it is not. It is appropriate to much of New England, and 
to a part of the population of New York, but it is, and will 
probably long continue to be, most inappropriate to all 
other parts of the country, upon which it is attempted to be 
forced by a minority positively contemptible in the point of 
numbers. It is therefore an impossibility in its nature, and 
is destined to result in an ignominious failure. The power 
of Venice grew with the growth of her commerce, which in 
time becoming that of the world, enabled her to hire all the 
free-lancers of Christendom ; and as by degrees she lost her 
commerce, so did her power wane. Much resembling that 
of Venice, in degree, as well as in nature and in character, 
is the military power wielded by the dominant party of the 
North ; and it is. or rather was, based upon a similar founda- 
tion. But the commerce which could be its only support, is 
already almost lost ; not laid by in a napkin without in- 
crease, which was an offence, — but in four short years fallei'' 
from a tonnage of more than five millions, to but little 
more than one and a half millions. Truly has the mer- 
chant stripped himself for the fight ; but he purchases the 
southern negro to act as his proxy. 

To leave the Southern States out of the question, the 
futile attempt to erect such a government would involve a 
war in which the aspiring element must, from any point of 
view, be doomed to utter destruction. In the first place, 
it would in time have opposed to it, the whole agricultural 



—32— 

population, who, not accustomed to speedy or frequent 
transfers of property, which with thera is mostly real, so 
carefully scrutinize titles that no consideratiou will induce 
a venture where a flaw 13 suspected. They could not readily 
be brought to look upon a government suddenly changed 
in its very nature, from one of consent to one of force, as 
altogether legally established. They would detect the flaw 
in the title. Kor are they accustomed to look upon the 
mercenary soldier as a good conveyancer, — except to h n- 
seif. In the second place, the whole of the labouring classes, 
who would not walling permit their cherished interests to 
be destroyed, could not consent to it. It was its ereat ma- 
terial benefit to those two classes, that secured the success of 
the French Revolution. In the third place, no such attempt 
could have the remotest chance of ultimate success, so long 
as universal suffrage prevailed, for the right of suffrage and 
its practice, is the institution that is most deeply fixed in 
the mind of the people. It is the very principle of life per- 
vading every fibre of government ; and cannot be touched 
without perih It or the aggressor must die. Its violation 
in the border states has made the people there, the eternal 
enemies of the wrong doer; and had the possibility been 
conceived that this sanctuary of freemen was to be invaded 
no troops directed by the administration, could have pene- 
trated far into, or long remained in Kentuclr^^ or Missouri. 
Had they understood it, their armed defence of rights would 
not have proved so tardy. 'Nov until the results, in some de- 
gree, enlightened them, did Northern people any better 
comprehend what was intended ; much less perceive that, 
as it was their own organization which was violating the 
principle on which itself was founded, the intention porten- 
ded more danger to themselves than to the not altogether 
helpless peoi)le of States whose alliance had been so courted 
by the new and powerful Southern government. Correct 
knowledge has come too late for elections in the North- 
ern States to have any practical influence on the war. 



with its torminatioii, however, they will, in a' certain sense, 
cease to be a mere form. In tlie fourth place, by this very 
8uifrage,aud instigated by the leaders of the party in power, 
by city and borough, and county and state bounties, and 
funds of fabulous proportions for every conceivable object, 
among them incessant celebratious,at which are adopted the 
invariable resolutions that every one but themselves shall go 
into the army, there have already been incurred debts of 
such almost inconceivable magnitude, that the devastation 
to the country would have been less, had hostile armies 
swept through every State. At this moment the wealth of 
the North is more completely sacked than that of the South. 
The process is yet going on, and with ever increasing 
celerity, and now, cannot be stayed by those who still direct 
the rising whirlwind that will finally sweep themselves, de- 
luded mortals, to destruction. . 

This magic sacking of a nation's wealth, presents a spec- 
tacle of bloated ruin, like that of some mad spendthrift 
heir, \^ho, by loans, contrives to dissipate in one protracted 
revel the fruits of long ancestral labour. How the gather- 
ing parasites applaud to the vQvy echo his every act of folly. 
How willingly, if they only could, wjald they die for love 
of him. Keen as vultures, while he is blind as a bat, they 
fill their pockets as they, chant his praise. In his straits 
they vow that none is rich 3r than he, for well they know 
that mucli of what he can borrow becomes their spoil. How 
they scoff and sneer at the old-fashioned fools who in griel 
and sorrow, shake their heads at the wild doings of a 
youth they were disposed to love, j^et of whom, in truth 
they had some doubts and fears. How they warn him 
against, and vent their curses at, such half-hearted, disaf- 
fected fellows who stand apart, and speak with ifs and buts 
suggesting d()ul)ts of legal title, that the estates are en- 
tailed, not in fee ; or else, speak not at all. It is a brave 
sight, but it has its end Inexorable time brings judgnjcut, 



—34— 

and a change of scene. Now, none so helpless "as he, the 
vrhilom master. Fire and flood could not have done this 
work of paper. A.nd how the vampire scoundrels swear 
they were his victims merely. Sure, never again will they 
trust mortal man, if one so fair could so deceive. Obedi- 
ent to a time-honoured custom, they, and all the world 
beside, turn their backs upon him, — for nothing more is to 
be expected. His only friends, now, and ready as ever 
with wholesome counsels, are the old-times people, his 
father's friends. 

It is a striking fact, that the class most deeply interested 
against their scheme comprises those who are engaged in 
it. Yet they will not be warned. There is another class 
which has aided them. They are the ranting and raving 
philosophers of the Greely and Beecher and Wendell 
Phillips' school, together with the apostate ministers who 
have abandoned the salvation of souls for the destruction 
of bodies ; men whose garments are red with blood, and 
who by making unto themselves an anti-slavery god, have 
just as completely dethroned the true and living One, as 
did their brother revolutionists in France, when, under 
Danton, they worshipped that foul thing they styled the 
goddess of reason. Could the monej-'getters, whose wor- 
ship is of the golden calf, by any possibility, be successful 
in their scheme, the first act of the master or monarch they 
would establish, would be, as is always done in such cases, 
by exile and imprisonment, to rid the land, not of honour- 
able men who hold reasonable and cherished opinions, and 
are content that others should do the same, and who in the 
fullness of time consent to, though they may regret, the 
necessity of a sterner yet appropriate government ; not of 
these, but of the pests who will always disturb and never 
be quiet. 

The idea of a union of independent governments, even 
when not confederated, for only equals can so associate, and 
the possible advantages resulting therefrom, was not novel 



^35— 

to the minds of those who framed the system under which 
the American people have lived so happily. Prior to their 
independence, it was claimed that each Colony was an in- 
dependent State, but held of the crowu, just as the kingdom 
of Hanover was independent, yet held, in the male line 
however, of the Crown of England. "The sovereign, or 
rather the first magistrate of the monarchial republic, Neu- 
chatel, is the King of Prussia, whose authority is limited 
by the great privileges of the country. The liberties of the 
people, though the most absolute monarch in Germany is 
first magistrate, are better secured than even in the most 
democratical Cantons of Switzerland. Personal liberty is 
tenderly and securely protected, as it is in England or 
America, where the same laws in substance or spirit prevail. 
'No citizen can be tried out of the country, or otherwise 
than by the judges. All the citizens have a right to enter 
into the service of any foreign State, even though at war 
with Prussia." (Adams' Def. ii. 446, 50.) 

No vague idea of the principle that " government derives 
its just power from the consent of the governed," could 
have been entertained by students of the feudal law. 
" There is no lord or monarch upon earth (says Philip de 
Comiues, himself bred in courts, born 1445), who can raise 
a farthing upon his subjects, beyond his own dominions, 
without their free concession, except through tyranny and 
violence." (Hallam's Middle Ages, 9th ed. i. 180) "It 
was a fundamental principle, that every feudal tenant was 
so far sovereign within the limits of his fief, that he could 
not be bound by any law without his consent. ' The king, 
says St. Louis in his Establishments, cannot make proclama- 
tion, that is declare any new law, in the territory of a baron, 
without his consent, nor can the baron do so in that of a 
vavassor.' " (Ibid, i. 165.) " It is a question agitated among 
feudal lawyers, whether a vassal is bound to follow the 
standard of his lord against his own kindred. It was one 
more important, whether he must do so against the king. 



In the works of those who wrote when the feudal system 
was declining, or who were anxious to maintain the roj^al 
authority, this is common!}- decided in the negative. Lit- 
tleton gives a form of homage, with a reservation of the 
allegiance due to the sovereign ; and the same prevailed in 
Normandyand some other countries * * * * Bat it was not 
so during the height of the feudal system in France * * * * 
Even so late as the age of St. Louis, born 1215, it is laid 
down in his Establishnaents, that if justice is refused by the 
king to one of his vassals, he might summon his own ten- 
ants, under penalty of forfeiting their liefs, to assist him in 
obtaining redress by arms. The Count of Britany, Pierre 
de Dreux, had practically asserted this feudal right during 
the minority of St. Louis. In a public instrument he an- 
nounced to the world, that having met with repeated in- 
jiiries from the regent, and denial of justice, he had let the 
king know, that he no longer considered himself as his 
vassal, but renounced his homage and defied him." "It was 
always necessary for a vassal to renounce hife homage before he 
made war on his lord, if he woul d avoid the shame and penalty 
of feudal treason. After a reconciliation, the homiage was re- 
newed. And in this no distinction was made between the 
king and another superior."' (Du Cange, i. 196, Mat. Paris, 
' 126, Hallam,i.ll8.) The Xoblesof Aragon, "were entitled, 
like the nobles of the sister kingdom, to defy, and publicly 
renounce their allegiance to their sovereign, with the 
whimsical privilege, in addition, of commending their fam- 
ilies and estates to his protection, which he was obliged to 
accord, until they were again reconciled." [Prescott's Ferd. 
& Isab, i. Ixxxix, xc. The application of the term, whimsi- 
eal, to so important a law of the Aragonese feudal federation, 
betrays a departure from the sound philosophy which usually 
characterized Mr. Prescott's mind. Any law or custom differ- 
ing from those to whose control we have long been subject, 
mustof course seem moreorless nnnccessary, and, inasmuch, 
as we :tvo not habituated to irso|)erati«>fi, it m list. To the extent 



6( 



that habit is a second nature, also seem un natural, A law 
entirely appropriate to a very different era of national life, is, 
without investigation, altogether incomprehensible to us. 
How little, in this country, can we appreciate the value of 
the dual principle in government. We are aware that it 
appears in the spiritual and temporal Emperors in the con- 
stitution of Japan ; in the Monarchy and Premiership of 
England; in the Sultan and Grand Vizier of Turkey, and 
that in the early French Monarchy, it existed in the Crown 
and Mayor of the Palace. It is a principle very much de- 
rided, aud seems truly whimsical to those who scout at the 
idea of a monarch without power or authority, as it is the 
fashion to assert, when speaking of the English Crown. As 
to this law of Aragon, its existence simply, without any 
other evidence, and just as infallibly as in comparative 
anatomy the nature and character of an organic structure 
can be determined from a single bone, would prove that 
national government to have resulted from an agreement be- 
tween the barons, a union of their powers ; that the head 
thereof, the crown, was limited ; and that it was well un- 
derstood that it, like other crowns, would be apt to trans- 
cend its delegated powers. It further proves that the 
contracting parties relied upon, what it was perfectly 
natural for military organizations to rely upon, their own 
power for self protection ; and that were the use of force by 
theerown, attempted tobe pushed to the extent of extinguish- 
ing the existence of a bcxrony, like the project, with us, of 
subjugating a State, and reducing it to the condition of a 
territory, it would result in good faith as well as self interest 
enlisting all the other barons in its support. In the absence 
of such an organic law, if the crown could have commanded 
force to a sufficient exteitt, it could have been used for 
the confiscation of all property and the entire subjugation 
autl enslavement of the people. Everything would be at 
the mercy of a conqueror who recognized no limit to his 
j)()wer, except his desire. So far then from being whimsi- 



—38— 

cal, this wise law was t'ounded on reason and justice, by men 
of forecast; aud was of a nature to be most beneficial in 
moderating the aims and views of existing forces, thus 
preserving the principle of constitutional government. It 
was in truth a law of civilized warfare ; and a protection 
to all, to the strong as well as the weak, for the dominant 
party of to day, might on the morrow, be found struggling 
for life. How clearly then it seems to be a law dictated by 
enlightened self-interest, and more important, perhaps, to . 
the party apparently successful, than to that which is for the 
moment, considered unsuccessful. For, suppose, in a fed- 
eration, the numerically stronger parties in a contest for 
domination, were to announce that they intended to recog- 
nize no limit to their use of power, as conquerers. So un- 
blushing a proclamation would but nerve the less numerous 
people to an effort of the homeric age; and such an effort 
always rises to a pitch of valour and endurance that is ever 
crowned with success. This might place at tbe mercy of 
the scorned, the vanquished boasters, stripped of power, 
with none to deny that their fate was but the fate they de- 
signed for others. 

In the feudal system the barons were each independent, 
because each established aud maintained himself by his own 
organized power. They confederated together and gener- 
ally elected one of themselves as monarch, delegating to 
him certain powers, but reserving to themselves all others. 
Thus arose the limited monarchies of Europe, not one of 
which, however, has continued limited after the loss of inde- 
pendence on the part of the separate powers which created it. 
The loss of their independence involved also the abolition of 
their entire legal system, which, as no limitation of the 
central power then remained, resulted in the crown neces- 
sarily becoming absolute, and devising or adopting a legal 
system of a different and altogether opposite nature. Th^e 
feudal federations were often exceedingly defective, and at 
beet, it has been only some happy accident that has pre- 



—39— 

served sufficient of the federative principle to secure along 
continuance of free government. A good example of the 
system is afforded in the history of the constitutional king- 
dom of Aragon, where the twelve great nobles, who created 
the monarchy, installed the incumbent of the throne with 
the celebrated condition, — " We who are as much as you^ 
and are worth more than you, we chose you for our lord, 
on condition that you will respect our laws ; if not, not." 
The distinguishing excellence' of the " General Privilege," 
reluctantly conceded by Peter the Great to the Cortes at 
Saragossa, in 1283, consists, like that of Magna Charta, in 
the wise and equitable protection which it afiorded to all 
classes of the community. [Prescott's Ferd. k Isab. i. c] 
When this crown became united with that of Castile, and 
had made the conquest of Granada, and then of America, 
by the re-establishment of the Hermandad, which undoubt- 
edly, as to its illegal and incendiary features, has here been 
reproduced ifl Loyal Leagues, its power overbalanced that 
of the nobles, and consequently became despotic over, not 
them alone, but over the people also, and free government 
ceased in Spain ; not to be restored as Prescott, perhaps 
vainly, supposes. For the maxima and elevated thoughts, 
now. existing, which he miscalls " the dormant seeds of 
liberty, waiting only the good time to germinate ;" [Ibid, 
iii, 447] are not seeds, but the fruit itself. Or considering 
the free institutions of Aragon as a once entire and classic 
structure, they are merely beautiful fragments ; precious 
relics indeed, but such as may always be found among the 
• fallen ruins of some ancient temple of liberty. 

Free government survives in England, because her con- 
quests have not been incorporated with the kingdom, and 
her insular position has not necessitated large armies in the 
island itself; andbecause of the limitation of the power of the 
9r6wn by the Mutiny Act. Perhaps these causes combined 
are in reality less potent than the territorial power of the 
great nobility, which is preserved in its nature and orgaui- 



zation, and conse(]^ueutly in its character, by the law of pri- 
moa^eniture. This makes them in fact independent princes, 
though their strictly feudal cliaracter has ceased. It may 
be made as an incidental obsers^ation, that were the peerage 
destroyed, not only would the social and political character 
of England soon be changed, but by the division of property, 
and the destruction of the forests and parks, with a view to 
cultivation, the cliiT>ate too, perhaps, would undergo an al- 
teration, as in other countries, and most probably from 
the same causes, and much of the land might become sterile, 
and the population decrease and her material prosperity ba 
lost. De Tocqueville says, " Aided by Roman law and 
by its interpreters, the kings of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries succeeded in founding absolute monarchy on the 
rums of the free institutions of middle ages. The English 
alone refused to adopt it, and they alone have preserved 
their independence." [Memoir and Remains, i, 428,] When 
free institutions have been ruined, it is impossible to con- 
ceive any other government than absolutism succeeding 
them, and as government of this nature has long prevailed 
over the whole of Asia, it would not appear that Roman 
law, except so far as its principle is despotic, had any rela- 
tion thereto. In Europe, Roman law was resorted to, be- 
cause it was widely known through the surviving literature 
of the fallen empire. Had there been no Roman Empire, 
it is not easy to see that absolutism would consequently 
have been of less certain, though undoubtedly it might 
have been of less easy, establishment. In speaking of Eng- 
land he ap2:)ears to reverse the order of cause and ett'ect, for. 
the real obstacle was the continued existence of free insti- 
tutions, with which absolutism is utterly incompatible; and 
it would therefore be more accurate to say, that it was be- 
cause the English refused to abandon their own laws, thus 
preventing the crown becoming their despotic master, that 
they thereby avoided the necessity of a resort to despotic or 
Jxoiuan law. 



—41— 

Mr. Johu Stuart Mill considers that as in France, "a larsro 
part of the people have been engaged in military service, 
many of whom have held at least the rank of non-commis- 
sioned ollicers, there are in every popular insurrection, sev- 
eral persons competent to take the lead, and improvise 
some tolerable plan of action." (On Liberty, 2d ed. 201.) 
It does not appear to have occurred to him that his "toler- 
able plan" could only result in substituting a few new offi- 
cers in the places of a few old ones, without at all aiiecting 
the vitality of the dominating military organization, and 
that consequently the principle of the government would 
not be in the least degree disturbed. He continues ; 
" What the French are in military affairs, the Americans 
are in every kind of civil business. * * * * ^^^j .^ 
people capable of this is certain to be free ; it will never let 
itself be enslaved by any man or body of men because these 
are able to seize and pull the reins of the central adminis- 
tration." (Ibid. 201-2.) Fortunately for the author's rep- 
utation, his book was printed in 1859. Liberty is not the 
fruit of the happy conceits aud telling paragraphs of ear- 
nest writers. Their thoughts are often drawn, unconsciously, 
from what has formerly existed, without adverting to, or 
comprehending, the deeply hidden principle involved ; their 
delusory promises of what the future is to bring forth, are 
apt to be based only on their visionary hopes, aud not upon 
a correct understanding of the law of cause and effect. 
Ceaseless in their action and re-action, but ever varjnag in the 
degree of intensity, opinions modify or destroy institutions ; 
and institutions, modify or destroy opinions. Each have 
their turn. It is not exactly in either of these forms of de- 
struction, that liberty exists — there is, necessarily, too much 
of despotism for that. In their infancy institutions domi- 
nate absolutely, else they cannot reach maturity. Iv. their 
decay, adverse opinions assume despotic sway, and thus se- 
cure their fall. Rather then would liberty seem to be a 
living reality through the era of the maturity of institutions; 
6 



—42— 

and happy the nation in which that career of glory is long 
pi'Otracted. The birth of hberty may thus occur. The princi" 
pie of federation necessarily involves consent ; consequently 
it is based upon the equality of rights among the confeder- 
ates ; and as each is independent, he or, if a state, it na- 
turally upholds any one whose views and opinions coincide 
with his or its own. Hence arises difference of opinion in 
the nation, and each opinion receives sufficient support 
to make it respectable. Although altogether adverse to the 
hopeful but fallacious view of Mr. Mill, this is real liberty, 
securely planted on an enduring foundation, with the pro- 
mise of a fair development ; and it would appear to be not 
only a direct result of the principle of federation, but to be 
impossible without it ; for unless there exist the organiza- 
tion of an independent state or baron, on which to rely for 
support, each individual, in each assertion of his right, 
must, for himself, which of course is a simple impossibility, 
organize a combination for the purpose. Liberty, however, 
cannot outlast its foundation. Hence it is, that in a land 
where the vitality of its institutions or establishments has 
become exhausted ; where the confederate powers, be they 
states, or be they barons, have lost their independence and 
ceased their existence ; where nothing remains but a cen- 
tral government and a people, that government is absolute, 
and the tendency in the people is to become uniform in char- 
acter and manners ; and then there is, or soon will be, no- 
thing left, and nothing even to hope for, but a sort of 
Asiatic despotism. 

The principle of consent among the independent powers, 
and its consequence, a compromise of difference, does not 
seem to have been entirely appreciated by De Tocqueville, 
who, in his admirable vi^ork on this country, says '' The 
first ditiiculty which presents itself arises from the complex 
nature of the Constitution of the United States, which con- 
sists ol" two distinct social structures, connected, and, as it 
were, en»M>sed one within the other: two governments com- 



—43— 

pletely separate and almost independent." (Democracy in 
Am. Cambridge ed. 1862, i. 173) "Evidently this is no 
longer a Federal Govern meat, but an incomplete National 
Q-overnmeiit, which i:^ neither exactly uational, nor exactly 
federal." (Ibid. i. 201.) And again he says, "The most 
prominent evil of all federal systems is the complicated 
nature of the means they employ. Two sovereignties are 
necessarily in presence of each other." (Ibid, i. 210) The 
principle of the system is accurately described ; but the 
difficulties and evils he complains of, and would remove, are 
exactly what are required to restrain those who tempo- 
rarily wield power, no matter wliat their intelligence or 
their purpose, for the consequences of violent changes 
are never foreseen b}'' their enthusiastic authors ; nor 
can they be avoided by their helpless victims. And 
while they serve this important end, they aftbrd at the same 
time what no one more than Mr. Alills, pp, 114, 116, recog- 
nizes as an absolute necessity for liberty and freedom, varied 
fields for rival developments. So far then from removing 
such difficulties and evils, the wise statesman would thorough- 
ly and rigidly maintain them, with the view to lead irresist- 
ably the minds of all, to perceive no other mode of settling 
any question except by compromise, D.)e3 not a contest 
for domination between two such independent powers, with 
separate orbits, quite resemble a quarrel of the priest and 
physician over a patient, for whom nature would yet do 
much if man would be content to do less. These necessary 
ministers to our welfare greatly depend for their success 
upon their sway over the ' mind; but who would tol- 
erate for one instant a contest between the tailor and 
the shoemaker, as to the absolute supremacy of either 
in the matter of the whole apparel ? "Were it the latter who 
aspired to domination, would not any one unconsciously 
plagiarise, by exclaiming " Cobbler stick to thy last? " 

Mr. De Tocqueville says, " In England, the constitution 
may change continually ; or rather it does not in reality 



—44— 

exist." (Dem. i. 126) And that the, (his twelfth edition, 
Paris, 1848, contains it also) " immutability of the consti- 
tution of France is a necessary consequence of the laws." 
(Ibid, ii, 429) In view of the events of the five years im- 
mediately following the revolutionary efforts of 1848, may 
it not be said that, even if the Constitution of England do 
continually change, and do not in reality exist, that never- 
theless the infatuated people there believe it does exist, 
and with a ftiir promise of continuance ; while that of 
France. immuiahU though it be, restrains neither President 
nor Emperor. This writer's error appears to be fundamental, 
but it must be remembered that he " writes under the im- 
pression of a kind of religious terror produced in his mind by 
the view of that irresistable revolution which has advanced 
for centuries in spite of every obstacle, and w^hich is still 
advancing in the midst of the ruins it has caused." (Ibid, 
i. 6.) It is possible to understand that the curse of God, 
imposing slavery with all its heathen horrors, for countless 
centuries upon the unhappy people of mysterious Africa, 
could strike religious terror in the mind. It is too much to 
say that a calm survey of the gradual fall of European feu- 
dal institutions, protracted as it was, through some hundreds 
of years, could do so. It could not have been to this, but, 
probably, it was to the tales of terror, heard amid the scenes 
of nameless crimes, enacted in their wild anarchy of a few 
short years, by a maddened people, that the otherwise justly 
balanced mind and gentle spirit of the accomplished French- 
man succumbed. He says " The form of government which 
is usually termed mixed has always appeared to me a mere 
chimera. Accurately speaking, there is no such thing as a 
mixed government, in the sense usually given to that word, 
because, in all communities, some one principle of action 
may be discovered which preponderates over the others. 
* * * * I am therefore of opinion, that social power 
superior to all others must always be placed somewhere.'' 
(Ibid, i. r,n.) 



—45— 

l8 it not now clear that, if social power superior to all 
others, in the sense Mr. De Tocqueville gives, be placed 
somewhere, it will soon be everywhere ; that it will inevit- 
ably destroy the others ? That when by the aid of the de- 
moeratia^ it has succeeded in destroying the aristocratic, 
principle, it will instantly turn upon its blind and faithful 
ally, and appear in its true colour, a despotism; which, though 
it may be long protracted in its duration, is, as all history 
shows, the closing stage of a national life that must at last 
end? A nation, composed as it is of families and different 
interests, with their varied pursuits, may well be likened 
to a collection or confederation of trees, in each of which 
and in all ot which, there is one power, the principle of life. 
But that power is divided by immutable laws, and may cor- 
rectly be termed a mixed power, or government, for the 
action thereof is as well on the roots which grow downward, 
and are not seen, as on the limbs which grow upward, and 
whose increase is so slow that the nicest eye can scarce 
discern it. And the foliage and the fruit, too, though they 
be but the product of a year, result from the same power, 
or from one involved therewith ; for the yield of fruit of 
its peculiar flavour, and of leaves after their own form, 
would seem to be the result of attendant laws or principles, 
co-existent with the principle of life. Philosophers who 
would construct their ideal governments, should have also 
the power to create the beings who are to live under them. 
Perhaps they have; for the subjects of such despotism 
become in time so abject, that it is scarcely possible to 
realize that we and they were made by the same creator. 
The maturity of national life is so full in its product of rich 
fruit, its varied enterprizes and its useful novelties, that it 
appears to excite in reformers the desire to direct all power 
exclusively to their production. But their views and doc- 
trines tend to a stationary despotism, like that of China, and 
the insipid uniformity, which is the result, would seem to 
be as unnatural and unlawful as if, had one of those disturb- 



—46— 

ers the power to do no, lie were, by destroyiug their pecu- 
liar laws of developeraent, to have all trees yield but oue 
fruit, of one size, oue colour, aud one flavour. Why this 
iuviucible determiuatiou to reduce ever)'thiug to one single 
elenieut? We breathe the atmosphere, but no one is mad 
enough to attempt the use of the deadly gases into which it 
may be resolved. Is the planetary system to fall in ruins, 
because within it, one orb revolves around another, aud all 
around their centre, and the tendency of their motions be 
centripital and centrifugal? Though we may not compre- 
hend it, do we not believe in the Trinity? As the works 
of God are more perfect than those of man, it should be 
our aim to change by development only, not to destroy, 
the institutions and their principles, that may happen to 
exist in the land it is our lot to live in. It sometimes hap- 
pens that the tree of little promise yields rich fruit, and with 
time assumes a fairer form ; but if either its roots or its 
limbs be destroyed it can bear none at all, and there is no 
other to speedily replace it. So far then from, cousidering 
the co-existence of separate and balanced powers in a nation 
as an imperfection, a chimera, it is their presence in proper 
proportion, and their free and healthy action, no one domin- 
ating and destroying, but each serving its appointed pur- 
pose, that presents the truest and fairest picture of perfec- 
tion. 

An instance of how the purest and most devoted theoreti- 
cal opponent of absolutism may, when entrusted with 
power, himself become tyrannical, is to be found in the 
public career of Mr. De Tocqueville. In 1839 he prepared 
the report of the Committee of the Chamber of Deputies on 
the abolition of slavery in the French colonies ; and in send- 
ing a copy of it to John Stuart Mill, he wrote, "I have not 
tried to be eloquent. I have even carefully avoided irritat- 
ing the colonists, which has not prevented their newspaper^ 
from lavishing much abuse on me. But yon know what 
colonists are ; they are all alike, to whatever nation they 



—47— 

may belong. Tliey become mving madmen as soon as one 
speaks of justice to their negroes." [Memoirs, ii. 50.] Had 
it occurred to this most accomplished writer that his subject 
was not eloquence itself, it can scarcely be doubted that all 
his great powers would have been used to make it such. 
That his natural disposition led him to avoid irritatino- the 
colonists, only proves that he believed himself to be right, 
not that they were wrong; that he was conscious of -being 
able to direct against them an amount of force which they 
w^ere powerless to resist; and was aware his influence was 
greatin proportion to the elevation and sincerity of his mistak- 
en views, and his temperance in their enunciation. He ouo-ht 
to have known, to entitle him to speak so confidently, but 
he could not know, what colonists are; for he was not one 
himself. Stigmatizing newspaper opposition as lavish per- 
sonal abuse, was denying to others all right to opinion, and 
claiming for himself infallibility. Colonists differ from the 
subjects of the parent government in being unheeded in 
argument and unheard in council, for they cannot join anv 
one of the parties into which the nation is divided, and 
which, to strengthen itself, will uphold the interests of its 
adherents. They perceive that the intention of the home 
government, in its often visionary scheme of change, to be 
enforced against the consent of the colonists, portends to 
them, certainly revolution, and, if resisted, perhaps, civil 
war; but that as regard the home government or nation, 
the intention and its consummation, while an affair of com- 
paratively insignificant proportions, must of course be 
thought conducive to its interests and advantageous to its 
policy. The possibility of a resistance amounting to war is 
altogether incomprehensible to it. It is not only on the 
subject of negroes that contemned colonists, in the esti- 
mation of a nation that believes itself all powerful, lose their 
reason With the exception of Brazil and Canada, the colo- 
nists of the whole of America, when they revolted, became 
raving madmen in the eyes of Spaniards and Englishmen i 



—48— 

yet the subject of "justice to their negroes," did not, in the 
remotest degree, euter into that mighty contest which made 
a continent the master of its destiny. When Virginia so 
long protested against sending Africans there, no doubt the 
English considered her people as disordered in their intel- 
lect. 

Mr. De Tocqueville selects the Southern States of the 
Union and England and no other country, as the scenes of 
great and approaching revolution. " Slavery, he says, now 
confined to a single tract of the civilized earth, attacked by 
Christianity as unjust, and by political economy as prejudi- 
cial, and now contrasted with the democratic liberty and 
the intelligence of our age, cannot survive." [Dem. in Am. 
i. 490.) While history shows most clearly that institutions 
change with time, and often even fall by violence, it by no 
means appears that it is owing to external causes acting 
upon them, when confined to a single tract of the earth. It 
is usually the effect of internal causes ; but it may be that 
these, as in tiie Southern States, aad in the island empires 
of feudal Japan and semi-feudal England, can act with 
equal or even greater potency in an opposite direction ; and 
in a time of war such counteraction is so overwhelming, 
that a year will almost undo the work of a century of peace- 
Discarding prejudice, it is impossible to perceive any difi^er- 
ence in principle, and there is none, in one man being au 
hereditary noble, and another an hereditary slave. If it be 
right that one man should be elevated, can it be wrong that 
another should be depressed? That Christianity attacks 
slavery as unjust, is claimed only by those who reject the 
sole authority for Christianity, for no political abolitionist 
does or can accept the entire bible. Slavery is simply an 
inside form of government, and an excellent one it has 
proved for the negro race. Like all others it may be im- 
proved in its character without disturbing its nature. 
Abolitionists only repeat, without at all adding to, what 
Montesquieu has said on the subject. His views are those 



—49— 

of oue who, a wituess of an institution in its expiring con- 
dition, in liis own country, applied them, not altogether 
philosophically, to the somewhat difl'ereut and newly estab- 
lished serfdom of another race ou another continent. With- 
out adverting to its sanction by Divine Law, he attacks it 
as '* opposite to the law of nature." (Spirit of Laws, 2nd 
ed. i. 339.) The exact meaning of this view is that were 
the author of it to create a world, it would be one with an 
alteration or improvement in that respect. Like all others 
of his day, he was of course ignorant of the fact that slavery 
always existed in Africa ; and that, consequently, it is 
natural ; unless, indeed, we are to hold that to be unnatural 
which is proved to be the invariable natural tendency in 
certain races of man. It might as well be said that the 
Avonderfully organized slavery to which the red ant subjects 
the black ant, (Swainsou's volume in Lardner's Cabinet 
Cyclopedia, London, 1840, pp. 594 to 348.) " is opposite to 
the law of nature." Some writers on political economy, 
ignoring the equally important science of history, have, in 
their ill-judged aversion to stable institutions, proclaimed 
that slavery was prejudicial, and to prove their asser- 
tion, they themselves alleged it was a cause of weak- 
ness ; but the severest test the world's history affords has 
more than exposed the fallacy. Its contrast with such 
democratic liberty as is permitted, and such intelligence 
of our age as is exhibited, by abolitionists, while it makes 
civilized man blush at their ignorance and falsehoods, and 
sicken at their crimes, it, at the same time, forces him to 
turn to Asia to seek their parallel. 

A member of the French A.ssembly and one of the victims 
of the coup d' etat, as an exile, De Tocqueville sends to the 
London Times, 11th Dec. 1851, a graphic account of that 
event. "In pursuance of Article 68 of the Constitution * * 
* * Any measure by which the President of the Republic 
dissolves the is"ational Assembly, prorogues it, or places ob- 
stacles in the exercise of its powers, is a crime of high trea- 



—50— 

pon * ♦ * * By this act merely the President is deprived 
of all authority." The soldiers having arrested the members 
of the Assembly, it was w^ile they were confined, Dec. 2d, 
1851, that " the National Assembly, decrees Louis JSTapoleon 
Bonaparte is deprived of all authority as President of the 
Kepublic." (Memoirs and Remains, ii. 182.) "If the judg- 
ment of the people of England can approve these military 
saturnalia, and if the facts I have related do not rouse its 
censures, I shall mourn for you and ourselves, and for the 
Bacred cause of legal liberty throughout the world; for the 
public opinion of England is the grand jury of mankind in 
the cause of freedom, and if its verdict were to acquit the 
oppressor the oppressed would have no other recourse but 
in God." [Ibid, ii. 190, 1.] It is too much to expect that 
one nation should preserv^e the freedom of others. Indeed, 
it rarely happens that it can even preserve it; own. The 
public opinion, as it is called, of England, or rather the 
sentiment of the few who write, for opinion is apt to find its 
expression in action or inaction, and not in words, appears 
to have had no appreciable influence on the course of affairs 
in France. It is not easy to perceive how it could have had, 
except by bringing on war, and had such been the result, 
the effect would necessarily have been exactly the reverse 
of what was designed ; for nothing could so effectually con- 
solidate power in France as would war with England. But 
no sight can be more mournful than this of the honest 
hearted and honourable minded man, whose every pulse 
beat for liberty and whose every breath chanted its praise, 
now amazed at the failure of the scheme he and others had 
devised for its security, and utterly cast down at seeing it 
expire, perhaps forever, in his own loved land. It was in 
the agony of such a mind that he wrote to his friend, Nas- 
sau W. Senior, 24th Feb. 1854, " While you preserve 
your aristocracy, you will preserve your freedom. If that 
goes, you arc in danger of fallins- into the worst of tyrannies — 
that of a despot appointed and controlled, if coutrolled at 



—51-- 

all, by a mob." [Ibid, ii. 260 ] He was, however, fixed 
in his admiration ofthe organization of all national power un- 
der one head, the result of his incredulity as to mixed govern- 
ment, and of his desire as a reformer for the removal of ali 
barriers which might obstruct the accomplishment of favour- 
ite schemes ; and not less fixed in his belief that the conclu- 
sive arguments of a few nervous writers could prove a limit 
to such national power, in the face too of repeated lessons 
that the utmost of their ability is,by uncertain insurrection- 
ary movement, to sometimes transfer the direction of it to 
the hands of another, who, whatever his disposition, soon 
learns that power so organized can only be used despotic- 
ally; that is, in amauner strictly in accordance with the nature 
of its organization. So thoroughly was this the trained 
habit of his mind, that we find him in the following year 
writing to Mr. Senior, 5th Feb. 1855; " Dangerous as it is 
to speak of a foreign country, I venture to say that England 
is mistaken if she thinks that she can continue separated from , 
the rest of the world, and preserve all herpeculiarinstitutions 
uninfluenced by those which prevail over the whole of the 
continent. In the period in which we live, and still more, 
in the period which is approaching, no European nation 
can long remain absolutely dissimilar to all the others. I 
believe that a law existing over the whole continent, must 
in time influence the laws of Great Britain, notwithstanding 
the sea, and notwithstanding the habits and institutions, 
which, still more thsjn the sea, have separated you from us, 
up to the present time." [Ibid, ii. 293.] 

Sentimental writers, calling themselves economists, phi- 
lanthrophists, and teachers of a religion with the latest im- 
provements, have for many years been engaged in a crusade, 
generally profitable to themselves, againt such institutions 
as proved obstacles in their intellectual raids. The key-note 
they sounded was, that, while iheir government would be 
cheaper than that of kings and lords, and even than that ofthe 
old government ofthe United States, which especially they 



—52— 

derided, sneering at it as dominated by the slave power, 
and stigmatizing its glorious flag as "hates' polluted rag, 
shielding a pirate's deck ;'' it would at the same time, they 
said, enure to the profit of the people in a greatly increased 
production everywhere. In the summer of this year, 1864, 
they believed that everything was in their grasp. Richmond 
and Atlanta were the gates to the paradise they sought. 
Following John Bright, who recently proposed the division 
of the lauded property of England, and whose proposition 
received the countenance of Richard Oobden, Andrew 
Johnson, in accepting the nomination for the Vi-ce Presi- 
dency, bids for votes b}' proposing to divide the large es- 
tates of the South among the poor of the North. The 
followers of Mahomet, wielding however the sword instead 
of the pen, were not more lustful in their greed of empire 
than these' sentimentalists, whose scheme, fortunately, can- 
not now be pushed much further, not that inexhaustable 
patience offers the least hindrance, but that, in their own 
language, it will not pay. Cotton famines and the surfeit 
of debt and depreciating paper money, and the reassertion 
of rights, almost destroyed by the schemers and vulgar 
jesters and buffoons who have been aping statesmen, must 
soon determine the limit of credulity. This was a conse- 
quence which De Tocqueville did not foresee, and England 
therefore may not encounter the fate he so confidently pre- 
dicted ; for if it be found that the strong arms and resolute 
wills of Southern men shall prove their sufficient defence, 
it can scarcely be, that the crusade against English institu- 
tions can soon or easily find a John Brown to commence* 
or an Abraham Lincoln to conduct it. 

The thirteen English Colonies in America declared them- 
selves, and ultimately were recognized as, free and indepen- 
dent States. Each by its own military power, and, by 
the Continental Army, all for each, had maintained its 
claim to sovreiguty; and they agreed together for certain 
purposes, upon a federative union, with the provision that 
it whould be perpetual; a stipulation found in the League 



—53— 

of the New England colonies, 1643, and in most treaties of 
peace which have been made between nations. Soon after, 
ward they amended their agreements of union, and in their 
new articles called the Federal Constitution, they wisely omit- 
.ted a word found to be unmeaning, for they engaged, to use 
the very word of Washington, in an "experiment." In a writ- 
ten compact, in order that no misunderstanding should arise, 
they clearly dejfined the sole ends they had in view, and the 
sole means they were willing to permit should be used 
to attain those ends. So far were they from entertaining 
any idea of surrendering the States as organized indepen- 
dent powers, that it may be truly said the prominent object 
of the Union was the more effectually to preserve them in 
that condition. That they attempted to do this, and wisely 
attempted it, is proved by the marvelous success of the cen- 
tral government they formed, — a success that continued 
uninterrupted until that principle was abandoned. Its 
career is conclusive that the federal organization was a 
healthy one, which cannot be the case in any nation, unless 
its constitution be in harmony with its social adjustments. 
That their plan was for them a correct one, cannot be ques- 
tioned, for it would sound like a truism to say that a federal 
form of government is necessary for a federation. To un- 
dertake to conduct a federal, on the same principle as a 
consolidated, government, is a violation of its nature, and 
only tears it to pieces. It would not be more contradictory 
and convulsive, were the impossible absurdity attempted, to 
annually elect an hereditary monarch. Except in one re- 
spect the Federal Government is identical in principle, 
though not in character, with the feudal monarchies of 
Europe. The same social forces enter into its organization' 
the people being the democratic ; the states, the aristo- 
cratic ; and the central government, the monarchial force. 
"While the citizen, as one of the people, is a democrat, he is, 
at the same time, if he have any respect for law and princi. 
pie, something more ; for as each individual takes his part 



—54-- 

in all branches of the government, it is essential that he 
should have a threefold nature. It is his duty to maintain 
his personal rights, in the preservation of whichall arealike 
interested, — as a member of a State, he partakes of the nature 
of what might be termed its baronial independence, which, 
undoubtedly, he has no right to consent shall be irnpaired, — 
and certainly it would be wrong in him to uphold the cen- 
tral government, in the usurpation of power from political 
bodies to which he does not belong ; but with which, as a 
member of a State, he is in a compact well defined in its 
provisions against such assumption. It is objected that this 
is a complicated system of government, but it is quite im- 
possible to perceive that any greater intellectual eSbrt is 
necessary to understand it, than is required of most of us in 
the ordinary affairs of life ; scarcely more than to prevent 
us confounding the oflices of the priest, the lawyer and the 
physician. While the democratic principle enters largely 
and vitally, and most properly so, into the organization of 
American institutions, the government, when properly con- 
ducted, is in reality that of a limited democracy ; and as 
such, it differs as widely from the vile despotism of pure 
or simple democracy, as that of the limited monarchy of 
England, from the absolute one of Russia. IlTothing has so 
perplexed impartial observers of our civil troubles, as the 
fact, that while the party of the administration, by the gen- 
eral possession of a slight smattering of knowledge, claims 
itself to be a somewhat superior class, yet its conduct 
throughout, has been marked by a disregard of honour and 
of legal rights, and a countenance of constant rioting and 
insubordination. Often changing its name, and at this 
moment calling itself the republican party, its characteristics 
are identically those of the parties which have dominated 
in other destructive eras ; — anarchy of thought prevailing 
among the members, who are turbulent and uncontrolla- 
ble, and in fact,entirely ignorant of the principles of govern- 
ment. The most highly cultivated and considerate persons, 



—55— 

whose just and liberal views are due to sober study and 
reflection, together with the great mass of honest-minded 
unpretending people, uiiperv^erted by the greed of gain, 
often illiterate, but by an instinctive unsophistic process of 
reasoning arriving at correct results, are those who best un- 
derstand and conform to our governmental system. And 
how brave, and patient, and enduring they have proved 
themselves. Called into being, by the unhappy civil 
troubles^ for the war had nearly destroyed old part:es,though 
not their principles, history does not afford the example 
of a party standing so boldly in opposition to the u&e of 
usurped power by the administration of government. Un- 
like the English, who for ten years without a murmur suc- 
cumbed to Cromwell, or the voiceless French cowering be- 
fore Kobespiere, in the face of a thoroughly organized 
reign of terror, and of the most reckless tyranny used 
for its persecution, it has steadily increased in strength ; 
and as the advance of time more clearly exposed the revo. 
lutionary aims of a dominant minority, it has only assumed 
a bolder tone and firmer opinion. Yet no turbulence, no 
disregard of law, has been exhibited. With these character- 
istics of a true aristocracy, this party,composed of men re- 
solved to maintain their equally valuable' democratic prin- 
ciples, has calmly stood in dignified and sublime repose, un- 
moved amid the tempest of a war upon its rights. Such 
a party cannot be lightly stirred to action ; it may never be; 
possibly it may expire under the despotism, for absolute 
power cannot permit the existence of parties. But should 
it move, it would be fortunate were it to do so as with one 
mind and a common purpose, depriving, like the burst of 
volcanic fire, whatever it touched of its organic character, 
and using it to feed the purifying flame. 

It is a mixed government, this of the United States, and 
one that worked most satisfactorily until its balance was 
disturbed, by a dominant party at the I^orth rejecting the 
aristocratic principle, that of independence of the States, 



—50— 

when at once were let loose the Bame frantic passions which 
raged in the French Revolution. Tlie exception alluded 
to in the preceding paragraph, is the radical difierence 
arising from the fact that after the institution of monarchy, 
the inevitable consequence results that the subjects of the 
baron gradually lose their character as such, and become, 
by degrees, subjects of the crown; while in a federation, so 
long as its members exist, each citizen must of necessity 
continue to remain associated with a State. Like the 
barons, the States are original, primitive, and self-existing 
powers; and confederating together they created the lim- 
ited federal government which, as it grew in strength and 
became thoroughly established, assumed supremacy over 
its creators ; a tendency incidental it would seem to federa- 
tions, and perhaps only to be checked by another confeder- 
ation somewhat resembling in its nature, that of the barons 
of England at Runnymede. A further resemblance may 
be traced. After a feudal federation has been etiected, in 
the creation of a baron, the monarch, as an agent, uses the 
power that has been delegated to him ; and the new baron, 
if an hereditary peer, can, equally with the others, aid in 
continuing the limitation of that delegated power which 
created, not only him, but all others, except those who at 
the birth of the nation, like the thirteen original States 
with us, established themselves by the use of the force of their 
organized power. In this sense, by being made equal with 
them, he becomes one of the primitive powers. He par- 
takes of their nature. Here it becomes necessary to cor- 
rect an error into which Mr. Francis Lieber has fallen. He 
says " The king made the Norman-English nobility. The 
nobility did not make the king " (On Civil Liberty and 
Self-Government, i. 64.) The Norman nobility undoubtedly 
existed long before the Conquest. By the transfer to 
England the nature of thefr organized power was not 
altered; they merely acquired new titles; as well might 
it be said that an old society moved into a new building, 



—57— 

becomes a new society ; and it could, therefore, just as 
confidently, and more correctly, be stated that, the ISTor- 
man-English nobility made the king. The king did not 
make the nobility. And so in the admission of a new 
State. The act in reality is that of the States, inasmuch as 
it is the result of their power, but it is performed by their 
agent, the Federal Government, to whom they expressly 
delegated the power to 'perform it. This view would re- 
move the perplexity of those who consider the Union to be 
the parent of the State. It merely appears to be so, because 
authorized to use a portion of the inherent power of the 
States to effect precisely that object. A new State is the 
peer of the other States, and can join them in continuing 
to limit the delegated central power. An unconstitutional 
attempt to introduce a new State, as in the instance of 
"Western Virginia, cannot be settled by the senatorial re- 
presentatives of the States, consenting to receive among 
them Senators from it ; for the States, who are the ultimate 
judges of the acts of their agent, exist elsewhere than in 
the Federal Senate. This instance of Western Virginia may 
be likened to the case of the patent issued in 1856, to Sir 
James Parke, creating him. Baron Weusleydale for life. 
The peers loudly protested against the intrusion of a life- 
peer to sit among them, for were all new creations to be 
such, in time, as hereditary peerages expired, the constitu- 
tion would be vitally changed, or, perhaps, lost, and there- 
fore, after a fall consideration of the subject, he was 
rejected. " The crown was forced to submit to the decision 
of the Lords ; and Lord Wensleydale soon afterwards took 
his seat, under a new patent, as an hereditary peer of the 
realm." [May's Constitutional Hist, of England, i. 249.] 
It was proposed to insert in the Articles of Constitution 
an authority for Congress "to call forth the force of the Union 
against any member of the Union failing to fulfill its duty 
under the articles thereof." (Elliott's Debates, v. 128.) Mr. 
Madieon said, " A union of States containing such an in- 
8 



.r.c. 



gredient seemed to provide for its own destruction." (Ibid, 
140.) Mr. Hamilton considered the idea as so preposterous 
that he could say little more than that, "It is impossible." 
(Ibid, 200.) The proposition was unanimously rejected. 
(Ibid, 140.) While the denial of the power of coercion 
would seem to be so clear that it does not admit of argu- 
ment, for it is simply a question of fact, the prevalence of 
the unconstitutional idea, to which Washington referred, 
made it essential, that any remaining trace of doubt should 
be removed. The struggle, one that unhappily yet eon- 
tinuea, first occurred on the question of the adoption of the 
Constitution, and as though Providence designed to aid the 
blindness of man in this favoured land, a compromise was 
effected b}- the adoption of the ten amendments. Though 
not more binding than the body of the instrument, they 
are infinitely more emphatic, inasmuch as thejr were in- 
tended to set at rest the points in dispute, upon which 
questions had already arisen agitating the country. And 
it is remarkable that in the three great convulsions which 
have marked its history, the administration of the Federal 
Government has not only assumed the power of coercion, 
which was unanimously refused by the States, but has in- 
vaded the powers or rights reserved to the States or the 
people, by one or more of these ten amendments ; and 
which "Washington said were reserved even without them. 
Xo one would would venture to deny this in the matter of 
the Alien and Sedition Laws ; nor would any one who en- 
tirely understood the subject, hold a different view as to the 
Force Bill in the time of the Nullification of South Carolina. 
With regard to existing affairs, the President now in office, 
in a message, has boldly taken the position, that he violated 
the Constitution and disregarded his oath, to such an extent 
as he thought proper. Prior to these acts of resistance by 
Bonle of the States, against the usurpation of power by a 
^arty which happened to administer the central government, 
there was a resistance, begun by Massachusetts, in which 



—59— 

all became combined, against the usurpations of the gov- 
ernment of England. This continual and successful resist- 
ance has not been at the cost of liberty ; on the contrary, 
it has been the means of preserving it. And it should be 
impressed on every mind, that the four periods of resistance 
have exactly marked the duration of successive generations 
of man, as though the memory of freedom did not survive, 
and each for itself had to struggle for the prize : for the 
jirst occurred about the year 1770, the others about the 
years 1800, 1830, and I860. From these facts of resistance 
alone, and altogether independently of the evidence and 
conclusions previously given, it is seen that tlie State or 
Colony, in its revolt, possessed power which it could use, 
and that it used it successfully ; and that after it had en- 
tered into the Federal Union, there has not been wanting 
the full evidence that its power had not ceased to exist. 
The fact of the power would not seem to be an open ques- 
tion. 

Wa are now further to inquire whether the power has a 
legal and recognized existence, that is, whether when a 
State acts altogether independently, the power it wields is 
its own or is wrested from some other goveroment. It might 
very well be claimed that the power used by the English 
subjects in the revolt of the Colonies, legitimately belonged 
to the Crown, which, however, by its attempted usurpations, 
forfeited its right thereto, whereupon it became legally 
vested in the bodies politic formed by the successful rebels. 
But it has never been held that one State acting against 
central government, uses the power of another State. The 
pretence is that iu acceding to the Federal Union, it parted 
with all power ; and that when it so acts, it usurps power 
from it. That is, it is pretended that the Federal Govern- 
ment is an unlimited sovereignty. But this idle and pre- 
tentious claim vanishes when we look at the agreements of 
the States in their Articles of Constitution. The word peo- 
ple is both singular and plural. In the Constitution it is 



—60— 

used in the plural number. The preamble of Mr. Pinckuey's 
plan, of the 29th of May, 1787, as did also that reported by 
Mr. Rutledge, on behalf of the committee, Aug. 6tli, com- 
menced, " We the people of ^ew Hampshire, Massachu- 
setts, etc. etc.,'" each State being named. This preamble 
was adopted unanimously, but obviously on the suggestion 
that some of the States might not accede to the Union, the 
State of Rhode Island not even being present in the Con- 
vention, all their names were struck out, and the word 
'• United" inserted by Mr. Morris, who, as Madison says, 
gave the Jinish to the style and arrangement of the reported 
draft and subsequent resolutions. (Elliott's Debates, v. 129, 
376, 882, audi. 507.) The enacting clause places it beyond 
even cavil that its Articles were the agreements of States. — 
'• The ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be 
sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between 
the States so ratifying the same ;" not over the States, nor 
the people of the States. We may perceive that only a 
limited .and clearly defined power was delegated, for the 
agreement between the States is that " the powers not delega- 
ted to the United States, nor prohibited by it to the States, 
are reserved to the States respectively, or the people." And 
the preservation of the powers which the States reserved to 
themselves and their people, ia secured and guarded by 
many recognitions, among others, " the right of the peo- 
ple to be secure in their persons, houses and papers," that 
of "freedom of speech and of the press;" and that *' a 
well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a 
free Slate, the right of the people to keep and bear arms 
shall not be infringed." There is also the recognition of 
the separate and distinct organizations of " the militia of 
the several States." The State then possesses "power;" 
the Constitution uses that word ; and as its machinery of 
legislation is perfect, it necessarily can use that power. By 
the same mode as they act on any other subject, its people, 
who can only be guided and impelled by their minds, whicli 



— 6i— 

cannot be coerced, if they conceive it to be a measure 
necessary for the preservation of tlioir recognized, not 
granted, nor guaranteed, personal rights, can by their con- 
vention and their votes, repeal their ordinance of accession 
to the Federal Union ; and by their arms prepare to main- 
tain their act. In considering such an act, which we can- 
not deny to be an exercise of power, the real question 
for us, as it is a violation of a joint compact, is whether it is 
a rightful or wrongful exercise of power, for neither the in- 
tention of those who bring about the action, nor the result 
of the action, in the least possible degree affects the nature 
of the power they use ; not more than the nature of the 
knife or the poison is changed by the difference of inten- 
tion in its use. 

Among sovereigns there is no superior. One does ndt 
direct the affairs of another ; the moment this occurs, the re- 
sult is one sovereign power, not two, for one becomes sub- 
jugated to the other. Each therefore is equal, each is in- 
dependent. Its acts are to be taken as the result of its 
judgment with a view to promote its interest. Does it 
err, it suffers. A sovereign claims that the use of its power, 
' is the result of its considerate will, and is for its benefit, 
and that no other can consistently interfere. It therefore 
holds that its power is its right, and the two words become 
almost synonymous. Arrived at this point, only a single 
step is required to reach, in a degraded monarchy, the doc- 
trine of the Divine right of Kings, or in simple democracy, 
always fitful when unlimited, the equally false dogma. Vox 
Populi,Vox Dei. But in governments which have true con- 
stitutions, the words in question are employed with more 
precision than is the case when used by warlike tribes in 
their conquests, founding nations, or by old or expiring, or 
apparently expiring nationalities, on which ceaserism threat- 
ens to settle, or has already fastened itself. Thus, that 
English Parliament, which heard the great Earl of Chat- 
ham defy the throne when he said, " My Lords ! I re- 



—02— 

joice that America has resisted," heard hirn also say, 
^'Foioer without right is the most detestahle object that can 
be offered to the human imagination; it is not only perni- 
cious to those whom it subjects, but works its own de- 
struction." In the Federal Constitution, except in one 
instance, Art. X, of Amendments, which reserves the illim- 
itable residue, the word p9?(;<:;r would seem to be used to ex- 
press that limited amount thereof, which the States have 
delegated to the separate departments of the Federal Govern- 
ment which they created ; and the word right, to express 
that which belongs absolutely to each person of the State. 
It is in the collected people of the State, the body politic, 
that the supreme and absolute sovereignty is recognized as 
inherent. In this sense it is scarcely possible in our system, 
also, when speaking of a State, which, if separated from 
the Union, becomes an unlimited sovereignty, to sepa- 
rate power from right, otherwise than to view it as an 
effect resulting from a cause ; for if the people are su- 
preme in tht'ir rights, they necessarily are also supreme in 
their power. The States delegated none of their people's 
rights, they merely delegated a part of that power which is 
the result of those rights. Certainl}- their agents cannot 
rightfully transcend the amount of power entrusted to them, 
and invade those rights, for that would result in the as- 
sumption of supreme power by the agents, who would 
thereby become the sovereign power ; and the loss of all 
rights by the people, who would consequently sink to the 
conditioa of subjects. To speak with exactness, the word 
right means legal moral power. It is so used in the Articles 
of Constitution, for instance, in the recognition of the right 
to keep arras. This is a right, not conferred or granted 
thereby, but recognized as pre-existing and inherent. It 
was, as has been stated, acquired by success in arms against 
England, and, as is also the case with regard to the other 
rights, appears to be recognized as personal, ujt pertaining 
to the State, but to each individual thereof. A State there- 



—63— 

fore, formed as it is of a voluntary associatioM of iudivid- 
uals, though undoubtedly it could assume the power to do 
so, could not rightfully deprive any one individual of these 
rights, even if it were unanimous except as to that person. 
Were it wrongfully to do so, as one man could not success- 
fully maintain his rights against a multitude resolved to be 
disloyal to their agreement, and to rebel against the principle 
of their government, of course there would be nothing left 
for him but enslavement, or else, expatriation or secession, 
which would remain his right, for the State would not be a 
voluntary association unless he could withdraw from it. 
By Section XXV, of the Declaration of Rights of the State 
of Pennsylvania, the expressed and unquestionable right 
to do this is recognized. 

As each State is a voluntary association of individuals, 
so the Union is a voluntary association of States, the ob- 
jects in view being " to establish justice, insure domestic 
tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the 
general weltare, and secure the blessings of liberty to our- 
selves and our posterity." And more completely to secure 
these distinctly stated objects, the States agreed that 
alterations of the articles could be made by three fourths of 
them agreeing thereto. This preserves the principle of con- 
sent, but it involves another principle, that no alteration be 
made touching the independence of a State, or the right of 
any person. Now the States which might agree to an alter- 
ation, could do so were the majority in each to be but one 
vote, and they might all be the lesser States ; whereas the 
vote in the States opposing the alteration could be unani- 
mous, and these might all be the greater States. Thus, a3 
by the census of 1860, the eight greater States contain a pop- 
ulation of 16,197,127, while the twenty-six lesser States 
contain 14,950,698. Now to one half of this latter number 
add one for each of the twenty-six States, and we have 
7,475,375, very considerably less than one-fourth of the 
population, who could legally make an alteration against 



— 04 — 

the will of 23,673,476, the entire population of the eight 
greater States and one half (lacking one for each) of that of 
the twenty-six lesser States. This is oti tlie basis of an 
election for members of the Convention bv a g-eneral ticket 
throughout a State. If each district iu a State should elect 
a member, the minority could be very much further re- 
duced. This conclusively proves that the people of all the 
States do not form one body politic, for in sach a society 
the rule of the majority prevails. Were an alteration so made, 
to be of a nature similar to some of the acts of the present 
Executive, to the efiect, for example, that the people should 
not have the right to keep arms, could folly itself supp ose 
that so great a violation of the principles on which the fed- 
eral compact was founded would be permitted ? So fur as 
form and words were concerned, it would clearly be the 
'law, no lawyer and no judge could gainsay that. Hso pam- 
phleteer? would be required to furnish, as in other cases of 
violation of the Constitution, an interminable amount 
of chop-logic, unanswerable because unintelligible, to 
prove what every one could see. They would be dumb, 
for the letter of the law would speak for itself. Yet would 
not the people be silent. Tiiey would show that a povcer 
existed in the laud beyond the letter of the law. The spirit 
of liberty would manifest itself, and renew the spirit of the 
law. 

Let us suppose another case. No State can, without its 
own consent, be deprived of its equal representation in the 
Senate. Were, however, the 31, 036, 609 people of thirty- 
three of the States to unanimously resolve that as the State 
of Delaware had but 112.216, it should therefore have but one 
Senator, and alter the agreement to that effect, it would be 
submitted to; because sufhcient power did not exist to pre- 
vent it. It may however be well supposed that this eas}-, 
quiet and successful usurpation of power in a case apparent- 
ly trivial, would be fraught with more danger and result in 
a greater levolntioii, than would the other (iase ; for once 
excited, the lust of power is insatiable ; and unrestrained, 



—65— 

it would sweep on until it leveled every barrier in the dust. 
Whereas, in the case previously supposed, power would 
merely be used for the maintenance of the barriers of re- 
sistance, and with success, its use would most probably 
terminate. 

From the view that has been presented, it is to be supposed 
that in the withdrawal of a State from the Union, the end 
sought is conservation of that State, certainly not the de- 
etruction of another, much less of itself ; nor is the govern- 
ment of the Federal Union among the remaining States 
necessarily less perfect, except in the degree resulting from 
the degradation of the principle of union, owing to the in- 
creased power of domination in a party animated by the 
fell spirit of unconstitutional aims, ji^or does a State with- 
draw because of its objection to the pre-existing and yet 
existing terms of Union. But it is because of a declaration 
by a majority of the States that they will no longer consider 
themselves bound by those agreements, and that the minor- 
ity must submit to have imposed upon them, — not new 
terms of agreement, for consent is necessary to agreement, 
but terms to which the}- will not agree. It is because the 
principle of consent, the sole foundation of the whole system 
of free and federal government, is about to be abandoned, 
and no longer recognized; and as a consequence, that 
another principle, ybrce, a principle upon which each State 
itself is based, but one altogether repugnant to the federal 
system, is to reign undisputed through the future. Owing 
to the frequency of elections, the interests and social 
conditions existing in a State, and the opinions which pre- 
vail, are at all times faithfallj' and exactly represented in 
its internal government. The people of a State can there- 
fore by no possibility desire revolution, other than that 
which is always going on with them. It is impossible, for 
at their will they make such change as they desire. Their 
abandoning the manifold advantages which are so well 
known to result from union, would therefore seem to make 
9 



^66- 

it conclusive, so far as the people of the withdrawing State 
were concerned, that their act was solely with a view to 
prevent a revolution, which was going on in other States, 
from reaching them. It cannot be supposed that a single 
State, or any number of them, being a minority, but acting 
singly, as they necessarily must at iirst, would attempt to 
dominate the majority. But it can be supposed that a ma- 
jority of the States acting, as a political party, through the 
machinery of the Federal Government, might attempt to 
dominate the minority; and the intention in their attempt 
would be, and could only be, to effect a revolution against 
the will of, and in, the minority States. In the event then 
of the withdrawal of a State, wisdom and knowledge would 
lead our minds to the belief, that sober reflection may with 
time brino; a conviction, that the extreme act was a ris^htful 
exercise of its power; or it may prove otherwise; for it 
is time alone which dispels the clouds of ignorance as 
well as of passion, and finds, on one side or the other, a 
modified opinion, and in both, a kindly temper favourable 
to a compromise. 

It may then be considered as settled, that a State in with- 
drawing from the Union uses its power. This cannot be 
controverted. The fact is so, and the law is so. The fact 
that it has done so may be disagreeable to us — it is more 
sadly so than can be comprehended b}' those who do not 
understand the nature of the government, — and we may 
have no kuow^ledge of the law ; yet must we be careful lest 
we transo'ress ; for is^norance of the law excuseth no man. 
But a State's rightful or wrongful use of that power is 
another and an open question, and one upon which each man 
has a right to form his own deliberate opinion ; he has, how- 
ever, no moral right to the indulgence of incendiary utter- 
ances, whose only meaning is the destruction of established 
power. If the act be recognized, and the State considered 
as a foreign government, then the Federal Government 
may rightfully hold it to account for violating the compact 



—07— 

into whicli it had entered, because the States delegated to 
the Federal Government the power to make war upon for- 
eign governments. But war cannot be rightfully and con- 
stitutionally made upon a State by the Federal Govern^ 
ment, so long as it claims that State as belonging thereto, 
because the States, as has been shown, expressly, and the 
vote was unanimous, withheld the power to use force 
against a State belonging to the Union. Force was author- 
ized to be used only against persons. If used against States 
it is wrongful, it is usurped power, and violates the compact 
with States yet belonging to the federation, and the rights 
of persons in them, and would, if successful result- in the 
destruction of the States, and the loss of rights on the part 
of the citizens. It therefore increases the numbers of those 
opposed to abandoning the constitutional principles of the 
government, and must, if persisted in, ultimately result in 
the withdrawal of yet other States. It would be attempted, 
but vainly attempted, to prevent this, by the suppression of 
all power in those States wdiose votes exhibited a change of 
opinion,-vainly, because State orgaaization,"once suppressed, 
there would arise in its place an armed part}' organization, for 
which the people and the States haveprovided by their Bills of 
Rights, and to maintai n which the physical ability exists. And 
that armed party would ba of the majority, for the conclu- 
sive reason, that so long as a party continued in a minority 
its suflVage would not be violated, and it could not, as a mat- 
ter of course, be brought to arm. But were the Adminia- 
tration of the Federal Government to succeed in retaining 
the consent of the people of the States now supporting it, 
to the use of power, which it is admitted by all, is extra- 
constitutional, the whole nature, form, and character, and 
eventually the name, of the "iSTorthern Government must 
become changed; one consolidated State replacing the 
union of many. The Southern States, on the other hand, 
if successful in maintaining their independence, will con- 
tinue to have a government of States united, scarcely differ- 



—68— 

ing from the admirable government we would have thrown 
to the winds. This would be inevitable, for no truth can 
be plainer than that the wrongful assumption of power, is 
more injurious to those from whom it is wrested by the 
arts of deception, or who ignorantly surrender it, inasmuch 
as it is apt to be permanent; than to those against whom it 
is used, for on them its effect, however severe, is only tran- 
sient. 

The plan of Federal Government has often been resorted 
to. Its action is satisfactory so long as its principle is 
adhered to ; but its principle is so delicate — that vital prin- 
ciple, the principle of compromise — that attempted viola- 
tion of the agreements of union is apt to be frequent. The 
BcBotian federation was composed of twelve or thirteen au- 
tonomous towns under the headship of Thebes. Platfea, 
one of the federation, was ill-used and discontented. It 
craved the protection of Sparta against Thebes, and surren- 
dered the town and territory without reserve. The Spartan 
King, having no motive to undertake a trust which promised 
nothing but trouble, advised them to solicit the protection 
of A-thens. They did so, and received it; for Thebes now 
invaded the Platfean territory. Battle was about to be 
joined when the Corinthians interposed with their media- 
tion, which was accepted by both parties. *' They decided 
altogether in favour of Platj^ea, pronouncing that the The- 
bans had no right to employ force against any seceding 
member of the Bcootian federation." (Herodotus, vi. 108, 
Qrote's Greece, iv. 221.) While the doctrine of this exam- 
ple of two thousand years was recognized by the wise men 
who sat in the Federal Convention, it and their endorsement 
of it, have unfortunately been lost upon us. We may grieve, 
but we should not be surprised at this disregard of 
human wisdom, for there was, also forourguidance, another 
example of two thousand years ago, and its acceptance by 
the same venerable men as a just rule ordained by Divine 
Wisdom, which also we have hardened our minds into re- 



—69— 

jecting. In providing for the rendition of fugitives from 
service, there was to guide them and us, the Epistle of iSt. 
Paul returning Ouesimus. 

No one who has written on the subject, has been more 
unqualified in his assent to the principle of secession, than 
John Quincy Adams. He speaks of it as a right vested in 
the people of every State. " Thus stands the RIGHT," he 
snjB, and by printing the word in capitals, instead of italics, 
he more than emphasises it. Mr, Adams says " It is not 
immaterial to remark that the signers of the Declaration, 
though qualifying themselves as the Representatives of the 
United States of America in general Congress assembled, 
yet issue the Declaration in the name and by the authority 
of the good people of the colonies, and that they declare, 
not each of the separate colonies, but the united colonies tree 
and independent States." (Oration by J. Q. Adams, 50th 
Anniversary N. Y. His. Soc, 183i^, p. 15.) "Therewasno 
congeniality of prin\3iple between the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and the Articles of Confederation." (Ibid, 17.) 
" The right of a single State or of several States in combi- 
nation together to secede from the Union, has been directly 
asserted, frequently controverted, etc., * * * * but is 
now terminating in a more devoted adherence and willing 
subserviency to the authority of the Union. * * * * 
With these qualifications, we may admit the same right as 
vested in the people of every State in the Union, with refer- 
ence to the general government, which was exercised by 
the people of the United Colonies, with reference to the 
supreme head of the British Empire, of which they formed 
a part — and under these limitations, have the people of each 
State in the Union a right to secede from the Confederated 
Union itself. Thus stands the RIGHT." (Ibid, 67, 68, 69.) 

It is not too much to say that there is not the slightest 
trace of an idea that the people of all the Colonies or States, 
ever formed themselves into one body politic. Every atom 
of evidence is directly to the contrai'y. What was proposed 



—To- 
by New Hampshire (see ante p. 14) would have effected 
that result; but her proposal was not even made a subject 
of discussion. Up to July 1776, the Colonies were making 
constitutions, which, in view of the continued sovereignty 
of the CrowQ, they styled temporiiry. Virginia, however, 
formed for herself a constitution without any such provis- 
ion ; but in order to make the act a logical one, she had, 
on the 29th of June, 1776, declared the government "as 
formerly exercised by the Crown of Great Britain, totally 
dissolved." (Elliot's Debates, i. 66.) The Declaration of 
Independence was proposed, iu Congress, by the Delegates 
from Virginia, under inst ructions from that State to pro- 
pose, not only that measure, but also " a Confederation to 
bind the Colonies more closely together." (Ibid, i, 56.) As 
it was five years before this proposed Confederation was at 
last agreed to by ever}" State, one after another, it is utterly 
incomprehensible that they could by their Declaration, as 
Judge Story holds, have ceased to be States ; [Ibid, i. 66.1 
and this without any one suspecting it. That in the 
assertion of independence they assumed to be States, and 
afterwards continued in the same condition, cannot be 
controverted, because, on all questions, in both the Conti- 
nental Congress and in that of the Confederation, all votes 
were by States; as it now is in the event of a failure of the 
Electoral College to electa President. On the first of July, 
1776, on the motion to adopt the Declaration, the two mem- 
bers from Delaware were divided; the following day, how- 
ever, the scale was turned by the appearance of a third 
member. [Ibid, 59, 60.] The action of this State, through 
its embassy, was un([uestionably that of a political unit. 
And such was also the case with that of each of the States. 
A vague idea of the exact nature of the result that followed 
from the position assumed by the Colonies, has no doubt 
arisen from the use, and it was a proper use, iu the Decla- 
ration of Independence, of the word unaniraous. It merely 
conveys the idea of a fact, and it means nothing beyond 



that, unless, indeed, in conuectiou with the absence of the 
names of the Colonies, the hope was entertained that Canada 
would in time be included in the revolt. Had this occurred, 
the absence of her name, if those of the others had appear- 
ed, would probably have proved an obstacle in future nego- 
tiations. Had Gen. Montgomery captured Quebec, under 
the term United Co?07?/65, undoubtedly the Province of Canada 
would have been claimed. In the revolutionary period 
there were two principal questions, and only two; and in 
these unanimity was essential. The first was resistance 
against the tyranny of England; and out of this grew the 
second, which was the dissolution of the dependence on its 
Crown. Had any colony determined on non-resistance, or 
on a continuance of British sovereignty, certainly the others 
could not have undertaken to etfect for it, what it would, 
in that event, have been opposed to ; which was actually 
the case with the Province of Canada. On the minor ques- 
tions, those which regarded the measures by which the two 
principal ones could most eltectually be established, una- 
nimity w^as not required. 

As to the assertion that " there was no congeniality of 
principle between the Declaration of Independence and the 
Articles of Confederation," nothing more need be said 
than that, as they were both proposed by the same men, in 
the same instructions, to the same men, and both were 
adopted by the same States, it is fair to presume and claim, 
that the people of that day believed it a question of not 
the slightest importance whether they were, or were not 
congenial; and if such was their belief, it need require no 
violent effort to be also ours. 

Without commenting on his use of the word suhserviency, 
which has no place in the vocabulary of freemen, it may be 
remarked, that Mr. Adams' admission of the principle of 
secession as a right vested in the people of a State, seems 
too broad and sweeping in its character. Their vested 
power is exclusive, but in view of the compact of the States, 



whili they have a right of judgment as to the propriety of 
its exercise, it is not an exclusive riglit. He probably had 
in his mind the ordinary case, wherein the only organized 
power is that of the otie national government, without a 
true constitution, and consequently unprovided with a mode 
of changing rulers, where undoubtedly, as it is the only 
possible means, the clear and unqualified right, if the word 
be used as the synoniyra of power, of revolution exists. 
But federations differ Irom simple national governments. 
He had not, perhaps, considered that in our system, the 
people of a State live under two governments ; tVieir own, 
always appointed by themselves, and directed by their 
will; and the federal, appointed, as to its administration, 
perhaps, exclusively by other States, and directed, perhaps, 
by the will of hostile majorities living exclusively in those 
other States. And that therefore, so fiir as the seceding 
State is concerned, the rupture of the federal relation need 
not necessarily be, except as to one of its governments, of 
a revolutionary, and much less of an anarchial, character. 
It has previously been shown that the withdrawal of a State 
would be because of the revolutionary tendency of other 
States ; a tendency boding all the ills of social war, not at 
first amongst themselves, but directed against the State, 
that, with a view to check that tendency extending to it- 
self, would engage in a measure which, however essential 
for the preservation of its existence, would certainly be at 
the hazard of a conflict of arms ; l)ut by which, however, 
it would escape the greater horrors of anarci)y and dire 
social war. Generally among men a successful revolution 
is pronounced to be right; for an existing sovereignty 
could scarcely admit that its title to power was to be trnced 
to a wrong. But there is a higher view by which to judge 
of human affairs than by this vulgar mode of measurement. 
By considering the corrrectness of the principles involved, 
and the elevated aims of the unfortunate, we may often 
juHtly hold that those who fail have been in the right ; and, 



™73— 

on the other hand, that those who succeed, however remark- 
able their energy or respectable their ability, may never- 
theless have been grievously in the wrong. It is thus we 
judge the people of other lands. Mr. Adams has passed 
away, leaving his well considered opinion that if separation 
should come, it ought to be in peace. He would have 
held that American to be a reckless man, who, claiming that 
we alone have adopted the maxim, that " government 
derives its just powers from the consent of the governed;" 
and that we alone can, by the ballot, ascertain consent ; yet 
vaunts before the world his delight at usurped power crush- 
ing consent ; and at force and corruption violating and pol- 
luting the ballot by which alone it is possible to ascertain it. 
It has been attempted to show that the constitutional 
power of the Federal Government is, as it was intended it 
should be, strict!}^ limited, like that of the Crown of Eng- 
land ; and by the same made — the only possible, one — the 
withholding- from it the supreme and absolute power of 
command over the arms and armed men of the country ; 
that this is the direct result of the principle of federation, 
appearing wherever that principle can be traced ; and that 
wli-en the best men of the land lose the disposition to be their 
own defenders that principle disappears. And it may not 
be doubted that so long as this constitutional limitation of 
power is recognized ; so long as it is held to be the supreme 
law that a State possesses power that it can use at will ; so 
long as it is believed that one State has no right to inter- 
fere in the affairs of another, just so long will our free in- 
stitutions endure. . But when sophists delude them, men's 
enervated minds become, as it were, saturated with the un- 
wholesome fogs of the muddy and stagnant swamps of 
lifeless twaddle, instead of filled with bounding vigour in- 
spired by healthful draughts of the knowledge of principles, 
sought at their clear and lucid fountain heads. And they 
call it progress as they are lured on through dark and tangled 
wastes by some short-lived jack o' the lantern, bred of the 
pestilential vapours which surround them. And that a 



—74— 

master may think, and act, and be responsible for them, and 
save them, as they vainly hope, from the sloughs from which 
they have lost the ability to escape, they agree that power 
shall no longer remain divided, and listlessly consent to 
drop the arms from hands once nerved by the spirit of 
liberty. Thus they yield themselves, their bodies and their 
minds, to the keeping of a despot, for whatever may be his 
intention or his character, the possessor of undivided power 
must, by the law of its nature, draw the rivets from every 
association within its sphere, like the loadstone island, 
which, as the ship of Sinbad the Sailor approached, drew 
from it the spikes which held its planks together, tumbling 
them an useless wreck upon its shore. 

Liberty and progress co-exist with, and are fostered by, 
the division of power, while anarchy, which ever attends a 
war of principles, and these are potent and conflicting in 
this i^orthern land, must, perhaps for ver}^ many years, 
reign the undisputed monarch through the fearful, yet, 
ultimately, unsuccessful struggle for its consolidation. The 
only escape from this dreaded fate is through a return to 
the true principle of the federal system ; for the real and 
actual division of power in this country, is the very soul 
and spirit of all its institutions ; it pervades all the founda- 
tions, and it appears in all the superstructures. Each State 
is based upon it, for by the sword it wrested it from England, 
and it was intended that its organizaiion, as well as that of 
the Federal Government, should wield it. Contiguity does 
not affect it, for adjoining States may, as they choose to 
will, use opposing ]iower, while widely separated ones may 
will to use it in a similar direction. Every citizen is bound 
by this division of power, for it is the law and the Consti- 
tution. He that is opposed to it is the really disloyal, if 
that ^^•ord applies in our system, for, as a member of a body 
politic, he has plighted his faith to support it. Yet while 
ho is bound by it, and it is his duty to submit to it, he has 
the riii'ht, if he think proitor to do so, to pro])Ose and urge 
iN ;il;(M:itioii : but he liiis tho right to do so, only in the 



■ I 0~ 



mode the Law and Constitution point out. Does he, when 
entrusted with admiuistr-iition, venture to assume and use 
power which has not been delegated to the i'ederal Govern- 
ment, or he who urges him so entrusted, to assume and use 
such power, he becomes lawless ; his object is revolution ; 
he strikes at the Constitution ; he would destroy it. He it 
is that aims at the national life. He is the architect of 
ruin ; and his crime is more heinous than that of the regi- 
cide, for he seeks to destroy a constellation of sovereigns. 
An accurate, and it is thought to be a moderate estimate 
of the debt of the Federal Grovernment, liquidated and 
unliquidated, is, that it already amounts, and without any 
indication of a termination to its increase, to full four thou- 
sand millions of dollars. While in principal equal to, the 
interest on it will be double, that of Great Britain. The 
valuation of British property is, however, three times that 
of the Northern States, so that the burden on Americans, 
and soon it will begin to be felt, is actually six times that 
on Englishmen. There is no ordinary peril in this. The 
organized institutions of the country may, possibly,even 
yet be restored, and with them a constitutional government 
somewhat resembling that of England in its nature and its 
success ; but it will be found to be an impossibility to con- 
tinue more than a few years longer the present enforced 
unity of government, whose tall must necessarily involve 
along with its own, that of the most overstrained tinaneial 
system that has yet been presented to the world. Montes- 
quieu ascribes the facility with which the Mahometans made 
their conquests, to the overtaxation of the Empire: it 
having reached such a point that " Anastasius invented a 
tax for breathing." (The Spirit of Laws, i, 310.) Their 
conquests could not have been eiiected at all, much less 
with such facility, had the people of the Empire been their 
own soldiers. But their day for that was over; had they, 
however, been so, they themselves would have prevented, 
or if not. they would have cured, the disorder of over tax- 
ation. The melancTiolv truth seems to be, that the old 



age of national life brings witli it, an administration of 
government controlled bj^ or in the hands of, the extrava- 
gant moneyed class, who, with adverse interests, always 
distrust the people; a standing army of foreign mercena- 
aries, an establishment so unstable, that, when it has ex- 
hausted the country which requires for its defence arms 
more valiant than its own, it either possesses itself of that 
country, or else quickly disappears, like water in sand ; a 
disuse of arms among the people who, by that time. Piave 
abandoned the simple mode of life of their hardy and self- 
reliant forefathers; and a taxation so onerous as to amount to 
positive spoliation. When plunged in such condition, a nation 
has passed its era of making conquests. This shirt of Nessus 
has been slipped upon the American people by men whose 
rapturous applause, at their own succes-, drowned the soft 
and gentle footfalls of the avenging gods, who, in their ap- 
proaches, as heathen story tells, are ever shod with wool. 
Yet there were not wanting those who gave utterance to 
their alarm; but they were unheeded, and often silenced by 
the cry that they were disloyal, and not patriotic ; the low 
voice of innocence was stifled by loud-mouthed crime. Pa- 
ti'iotism ! And what is it ? As to its possession, the same re- 
ply may be given that the venerable and Reverend Dr. Alex- 
ander made to the conceited student of divinity, who enquired 
of him "Whether he had Ruy religion?" "ISTone to speak of, 
young man! " And so with patriotism or loyalty. The man 
who speaks of it is not to be trusted, for he is without it as 
Burely as the man who vaunts his honour is without that 
quality; or as the woman who could condescend to dicuss 
the question of her virtue, must not only possess it not, but 
must also, be without a comprehension of what it is. Men 
may differ widely, they may be in grievous error, and yet 
possess patriotism. He who, by mad fanaticism, ruins his 
country, is not, necessarily, without it. It is a quality 
pOHsesscd by every one who boasts not of it, who trades not 
in it; and truly did Dr. Johnson say of those who do, that 
"Patriotism is the last rofnuo of a scoundrel." 



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